


Happy Birs'sday, Doctor Bashir

by AlphaCygni



Series: Deep Space Birthdays [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Homesickness, Kids, M/M, POV Elim Garak, POV Julian Bashir, Post-Canon Cardassia, alright DS9 doc i see your "20 years later" and raise you a "no one has to die", human birthdays, not your beta-canon Parmak, not your beta-canon many things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2020-11-26 07:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20926103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaCygni/pseuds/AlphaCygni
Summary: On Cardassia, Julian Bashir has aged with power and dignity but without his Federation friends.Garak has the perfect birthday gift.Sequel toHappy Itask’haran, Mister Garak.





	1. Blinding Sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sequel to my fic [Happy Itask’haran, Mister Garak](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833034/chapters/34330502). You don’t have to have read that to understand this, but it would help. In case you don’t, here’s the important bit. Cardassians celebrate itask’haran, which are something like birthdays. Itask'haran, however, are only celebrated every dassek (a decade in human years). The fifth dassek and the tenth dassek—the 50th and 100th birthdays, to us humans—are celebrated with bigger parties called seren’Ora. In Happy Itask’haran, Julian throws a seren’Ora for Garak on the station. I'll give no other spoilers.
> 
> Okay, enough rambling. Here is the second half. I hope you enjoy!  
-AC

_Happy Birs’sday, Doctor Bashir_

_Chapter 1: Blinding Sweet_

_Cardassia, 2391 _

Garak stood in the shadows and watched the shuttleport bustle around him. Travelers shuffled past, unaware. Tinny announcements croaked overhead. At the freight bays, cargo boxes were moved to pallets and on with quiet efficiency. Impatient patrons filled the café across, passing time over padds and drinks and broadsheets. It was early; the smell of rokassa was on the air.

Such watching came easily, he was surprised to find. Tain’s training didn’t tarnish, it seemed, even after years of disuse.

Even if part of him had hoped it might, just a little.

Garak had stood here before, in those years of Tain’s. Almost on this very spot. It looked different then, cleaner and more sterile, but it _felt_ the same. There’d been a group of dissidents—five young men attempting to purchase a cargo berth off-planet. He’d stood in the shadows, stalking, a shadowcat on the prowl. There’d been exhilaration as he coiled, ready to pounce.

He felt a hint of that coil now. The thrill of stealth. Of the chase. He _had_ missed it.

“Yaaaaaaaaaaad…”

His daughter’s whine, however, uncoiled that coil with ease.

Beside him, she plopped to the ground dramatically, drawing knobby knees to chest with a huff. “How much _loooonger_?”

Guls, that voice. Just a few years ago it had been as small and sweet as the trill of a desert lark. Now it put him more in mind of braying zabo in the fields.

“Not much longer, _lis’sea_. Do try to be patient.”

She stared up, pale eyes intense. There was no blood relation, but people often assumed one. It was certainly because of the eyes. “Can I get a rokassa?”

“You already had a rokassa. Too much will rot your teeth.”

“Our teacher says that’s not true. She says that’s something grandmothers say because rokassa used to be expensive. Before the growth projects.”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to test her theory if you don’t mind your teeth falling out …”

She shot him a dubious look but moved on all the same. “_Who_ are we waiting for again?”

“I told you. An old friend.”

“Why are we meeting an old friend _here?_ The official arrival area is—“

“_Ch’up_, my dear,” he warned.

“And how come you didn’t mention it to Da?”

Garak sighed. No, this was _nothing_ like the old days. It was, in fact, more stressful. And his back was killing him.

“Does Da not like this friend?” she pressed.

“Fate is not kind to children who ask too many questions.” Every once in a while, he opened his mouth and Mila’s words emerged.

“My teacher says good Cardassian citizens _should_ ask questions. That questions are the root of knowledge and that not asking them leads to tyranny and oppression.”

That one, he felt. The children’s teacher was young, and this new generation of Cardassians…He tried to understand, but sometimes, hearing the things that came out of his children’s mouths…

He sighed. “Far be it from me to doubt your teacher, but, in this case, I can guarantee more questions will be the root of a week without games on your vidpadd.”

Their eyes met, and he could see her daring herself. Trying to decide if it was worth the risk.

In Issi’s estimation, it was almost always worth the risk. His daughter in too many ways. “Maybe I should ask Da what he thinks.” She smirked. It was the same look she got when she thought she had him cornered in a game of _kotra._

The trouble was, in this instance, she _had_ cornered him.

He smiled, though he knew he shouldn’t. Julian would disapprove of rewarding such behavior. But really, she _was_ getting quite good. “My dear, why don’t you go to the café and buy yourself a rokassa.” He pressed five gray credits into her hand. “I imagine that will quench both your thirst _and_ your curiosity, yes?”

Issi nodded brightly, already halfway to the shop.

“And get one for you brother, too!” he shouted at her as she disappeared into the crowd. For a brief, heart-tightening moment, he was taken aback by how tall she’d grown. Almost as tall as the women she passed, though, thank the state, she was still years from that. She was also, however, a very long way from the toddler who’d pressed herself to his leg and circled his knee in chubby, barely-scaled arms.

He glanced at Issen standing on his other side, tapping a beat with fingers against leg. Even taller, he and Garak would be eye to eye soon enough. His limbs were growing gangly; his neckridges thickening. He seemed older than his twelve years, though many children who’d grown up in the want after the Fire seemed older than they should. 

“_You’ll_ keep my secret, won’t you?” Garak said to him quietly.

The boy gave a curt nod.

“Thank the state I have one loyal child.”

Issen stayed silent and kept attention turned down, but Garak didn’t miss the tick of lips. Amusement.

Garak still heard the nurse’s dismissive words when he looked at his son, sometimes. Heard the tone she’d used, as if holding up a piece of rotten fruit for inspection before chucking it into the waste pile. _The girl is fine, but the boy doesn’t speak. _

Back then, Issen had barely moved, crunched in a corner, silent. Issi sat beside him, glaring at anyone who passed. It had been only a month since their mother had died—one of the hundred plagues that seemed to flare in those first desperate years. Julian had done everything he could, but…

Julian had offered the boy a slice of _leejat_, and the boy had taken it and smiled in a way the nurse assured them she’d never seen before. That had cinched it for Issi. She’d clung to Garak then and assured him it was okay that Issen didn’t talk. That she spoke enough for the both of them.

At first, Garak now shamed to admit, he’d felt the same as that nurse. The same as any Cardassian before the Fire might have. The boy, in any other time, would have been eliminated. Or stuck into a state facility to live out a series of walled-in, solitary days that was hardly better.

But Julian had convinced him. Garak knew—had known from the day Julian first suggested, in timorous tones, that they might adopt the twins—that, in Issen, Julian saw himself. Himself as he might have been, if the board had arrayed itself elsewise.

And Julian had been insistent: Issen _did_ talk. The problem was that no one knew how to listen.

In the last seven years, Garak had discovered that, of course, Julian was right. Issen spoke occasionally now, sometimes in floods of words without pause, sometimes in terse monosyllables. But even when there were no words, Garak had learned to hear what Issen said with a quirk of lip, a change of posture. Garak had come to love him—to love both children with the same startled and unlikely intensity with which he’d come to love his husband.

And frankly, these days especially, Garak was grateful for one child who knew how to measure their words.

He set a gentle hand on Issen’s back. Issen nodded acknowledgment.

“Garak?”

The name surprised him, and he cursed himself for the distraction. Tain would have had no patience for him.

“Elim Garak?”

The Cardassian face that greeted him was that of a complete stranger.

“It’s me! Varak Paran. From Empok Nor…?”

That was the code. Excellent. “Ahh, yes. Paran! How have you been?”

The man set down the shoulder bag he’d been carrying and embraced Garak firmly. With an interior wince, Garak accepted it, though Order training tightened his attention. He kept hands away from any vital targets and arms at angles unable to pinion.

“Oh, you know me! I’ve been fine…I’ve been fine. Can be hard to find a job these days, but I thought I might strike out. Head for Kora II. Heard they’ve got some work on the new growth colonies there.” The man looked a little impatient, dull eyes belying the smile pasted across his face.

An amateur. Garak would have to teach the boy a thing or two about selecting a middle man. Nevertheless, Garak forced himself to exchange a few more bland pleasantries about Kora II and about the progress of the _gehoon_ crops there before he felt it was enough. “Well, I wish you success, then, Paran. And do say hello to your mother for me, when you next see her.” He extended his hand.

The other man took it. He palmed the fifty-credit chit Garak held out. Garak was rewarded with a dataclip at the same time.

It was a _bit_ like old days, he supposed.

The other man walked away, and Garak followed his bobbing head until it was lost in the crowd.

It exchanged itself with Issi’s face, bright and lips shining with iced rokassa.

“Was that him?” she asked as she handed another drink to Issen. “The old friend?”

“Yes, it was.” Garak wasted no time pulling a padd from his bag and inserting the data clip.

Green letters scrawled across the screen.

> _Garak—_
> 
> _You weren’t kidding about how hard it is to get Federation goods through the Cardassian borders. But, as always, the River provides. I found everything you wanted, but whether or not the enclosed are “teal”…I’ll let you be the judge. _
> 
> _I’m sorry I won’t be able to make it, but pass on my best wishes to Doctor Bashir. I hope I can visit sometime in the future, assuming you guys ever start letting us Federation types back through. I have to tell you, I don’t know how you’re going to pull this off, but I’ve definitely learned not to underestimate you. _
> 
> _Best wishes,_
> 
> _Nog, Capt, USS Defiant_

Garak clicked the padd off with a smile. He’d known the Ferengi would find a way. It really was a good thing he hadn’t killed him.

“Uh, Yad?” Issi was tugging at his tunic. “Your friend forgot his bag.”

Issen was pointing to the dusty gray duffle bag sitting just beside them.

Garak grinned. “Well, we’ll have to hold onto it for him, won’t we?” He swiped it up from the ground and put it over his shoulder.

Issi’s eyes grew large. “That’s stealing, Yad. Da won’t let you.”

“It’s only stealing if we keep it, _lis’sea_. Now let’s have a look, here. Just so we know what we’re holding onto.”

The girl opened her mouth to object, but when the scanner beeped in acceptance of his fingerprint and the lock popped open alluringly, curiosity got the better of morals, and she leaned in to peek. Even Issen turned his head.

Several rolls of what was _almost_ teal paper. Some odd cone-shaped devices that, if Garak remembered correctly, made the most horrendous noise. Something Keiko O’Brien had once assured him was traditional headwear for the occasion, and…yes. There they were.

He pulled one out. The odd, rubbery material shone in the overhead lights.

“What…what _is_ that?” Issi said, poking it with a long claw. Issen made an excited noise.

“It’s a human thing, _lis’sea_. They call it a ‘_bah-loon_.’” He shook it a little and both children jumped back with a laugh.

“What…what’s it for?”

“Like many human things, my dear, it serves little practical purpose.” He sighed and replaced it. “Other than, I hope, to make your Da very, very happy.”

“How will _that_ make Da happy?” she asked with the obvious disbelief of a young girl who had been lied to many times.

He gave her a broad smile. No, it wasn’t the old days, but it had its own kind of excitement. “Let’s go back to the shop, and I’ll show you how to blow them up.”

Both children agreed it had been their best outing in ages.

******************************

As a general rule, Cardassians didn’t believe in luck. There was fate and there was purpose, reward and consequence: luck was something only children believed in.

Garak did occasionally consider, however, that his own life might be a reasonable counterargument. The first few months after his and Julian’s Enjoinment, in fact, awareness of his good fortune had been near constant. Each time he’d looked at the man who stayed with him—who had stayed _for_ him—the feeling of having somehow inexplicably tipped the scales threatened to overwhelm him.

He was getting maudlin in his old age: it was the only explanation.

These days, that lucky feeling hit him less often but with no less force. It came sideways in little moments. He would be moving through the routines of the day, gray and smooth, when it took him unawares. Some movement or apt phrase or striking silhouette would bring it back: a pleasant sort of panic, that awareness of unearned joy. It felt warm at the center but hot to the touch.

Currently, it struck as he entered the living room to find his husband stretched on the long chaise, legs bunched beneath slender body, torso covered in padds, one arm tucked behind his head. The sun had long set, and the dim lamps poured gold over already golden skin. Though it was a mild spring night, sweat beaded there, and Garak could taste it on the air. Completely absorbed in whatever was on his padd, Julian rubbed at the stubbly hair on his chin absently, full lips in a pout of concentration.

_Beauty that burns, _the poet Kavit had written_. Merciless as the sun and blinding sweet_. Garak regularly understood just what he’d meant.

Eyes finally glanced up, and the pout disappeared into a deep breath and a stretch. “Finally. I take it Sen has succumbed to sleep at last?” He pulled his legs up further, making room for Garak at the end of the chaise.

Garak sat. “I believe so. I had to let him get up to finish the circuit board he’d been tinkering with: he had some idea he simply couldn’t let go of.” In fact, Issen had been practicing his portion of the poetry recital for Julian’s upcoming _seren’Ora_, and hadn’t wanted to stop until he’d gotten through the entirety of it without error. The boy was remarkably tenacious. “I wonder where on Prime he picked up that obsession with work over sleep.”

Julian set his feet in Garak’s lap with a playful poke at Garak’s middle. “One can only assume from the father who stays up until sunrise working and reworking the same spot of embroidery on a wedding tunic. I don’t sleep well when you’re not in bed, by the way.”

“Oh, I _do_ apologize. I should have told Tinat S’sava to put his Enjoinment on hold: my husband needs his beauty sleep.”

“How else am I going to stay this beautiful?”

Garak grabbed Julian’s foot, bracing his other hand under a firm stretch of calf. They exchanged smiles. Garak felt that burn. “I’m not convinced you can help but be beautiful, my dear.”

“Mmm. You old charmer.” Julian rolled his eyes and handed forward the padd he’d been reading. “This morning’s _Caller_. Have you seen it?”

Garak took the padd reluctantly. He was in the mood for something entirely other than reading. But he could be patient.

On most days, Garak read the major broadsheets during slow moments at the shop. This morning, however, had been decidedly lacking in lulls, and he hadn’t seen. The face smiling up from the front cover was older than when last he’d seen it but had the same air of easy condescension. The caption beneath claimed to picture the current President-Elect of the Federation Council.

“Looks like she’s the one,” Julian said, propping himself up slightly.

Garak took in the familiar face, keeping tight control over his reaction. One didn’t forget Lwaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, and Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. During those years of exile, she’d been an infrequent but profitable customer and an excellent source of station gossip. He’d rather liked her…then, at least. Now…well, things had changed in those intervening years.

“Indeed.” He handed the padd back to Julian with as much grace as he could muster.

“You don’t approve?” It wasn’t really a question.

“As far as I knew her, she was a perfectly charming woman.” It wasn’t really an answer.

“Elim Garak, the days when you could lie to me are long past.” It had the air of admonishment Garak had come to expect on this topic. “It’s because she’s a Betazoid, I take it?”

“My dear, I have no quarrel with Betazoids,” he said, trying to mean it. “But if the Federation was looking to smooth relations with Cardassia, naming a Betazoid was hardly the politic choice.”

“Hasn’t this ridiculous animosity run its course, Elim?” He was sitting up fully now, animated with those human passions Garak found at once annoying and particularly endearing. A different sort of burning, in fact. “Cardassia has found her footing. Betazed has recovered…Can’t we leave the past behind?”

Garak didn’t answer. He couldn’t give the answer Julian wanted.

It had been sixteen years since Betazed and Cardassia had both gone about the quadrant, holding out their begging bowls. As the two planets most devastated by the war, they _had_ been quite large bowls.

In those early years of recovery, the Federation had been essential and, even Garak had to admit, remarkably equitable considering Cardassia had been, until the Fire, the enemy. Early Federation aid had helped to rebuild vital infrastructure and to begin the growth projects that had reclaimed so much lost land for agriculture. Starfleet officers and Federation citizens had stood side by side with Cardassian teams to rebuild roads and combat unavoidable outbreaks of virulent disease.

What Cardassia needed most, however, after those first desperate years, were high-grade industrial replicators. They were the necessary component for Cardassia to regain some of her independence and to allow Cardassians to take the lead on their own recovery projects. They would allow Cardassians to begin rebuilding their own bridges and roads and cities instead of relying on Federation supply lines.

Cardassia had sent representatives to the Federation Council to plead their case. They made an impassioned appeal and presented proposals for the use of said replicators. They invited suggestions for replicator use from Federation liaisons. They even conducted the entire affair in Standard, impeccably and diplomatically expressed. All of Cardassia, even those who might not appreciate the Reunionist agenda, had to admit that Ghemor and his like represented the Union well that day.

They were told that the Federation would maintain its current aid arrangement.

Relations had been strained, to say the least, as the ‘casts showed holos of Cardassian diplomats exiting those gleaming halls on Earth only to return to their ramshackle offices empty-handed.

Several cycles later, the ‘casts had shown another story entirely.

The Federation had sent two hundred high-grade industrial replicators to Betazed.

Bad feeling went from a smolder to outright conflagration. ‘Casts and broadsheets exploded with resentment. It hadn’t taken long for the story to spread and for the fledgling Cardassian press to take it to its logical extremes. Some said it was designed to pressure Cardassia into joining the Federation. Some said Starfleet feared Cardassia would use replicators to create weapons. Many said the Federation wanted nothing more than to keep Cardassia abject. Harmless.

A block of Starfleet aid barracks had been burned to the ground in Culat. In Cardassi’or, a group of Starfleet volunteers had been accosted and beaten in the streets. Garak had tried to keep Julian indoors, but of course, the man had been stubborn. He’d endured only some uncouth shouting, luckily, and by that time, he’d learned enough Kardasi to shout right back.

It had taken only two more octals before Federation aid workers and Starfleet officers were instructed to evacuate the Union for their safety.

Garak had girded himself to lose Julian, but to his—and everyone’s—surprise, Julian wanted to stay. He applied for citizenship, and they’d vowed to be Enjoined on that day. A terrible day for Cardassia, but, in the end, one of the best thus far for him.

He looked over at that man, at his husband, who was still staring through pleading eyes. “We might not agree with what the Federation did, Elim, but…it _was _needed. Betazed suffered after the war, too. And Ambassador Troi helped them through it.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” he said, reaching for a padd of his own. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to acknowledge the worry that gnawed at him each time something pushed the Union and Federation further apart. “I think, just now, however, I’d prefer the intrigue of Alea Mari’s latest enigma tale to the heavy fare of intergalactic politics, if you don’t mind.” He powered on the padd with an overly elaborate sigh. “After all, I am but a plain, simple tailor. Politics are, perhaps, too grand a thing for me.”

Julian laughed and planted a kiss on his cheek before settling back down onto the chaise. “Plain and simple. I haven’t heard that one in a while.”

_That’s because now, my dear Julian, it’s true. _He thought it with only a trace of bitterness. _Too true._ He’d had such good fortune in most things—it didn’t do to dwell on the losses.

Julian was still looking, wistful, at the broadsheet in front of him. It made him look younger somehow. “Do you remember when she came to the station—er, Ambassador Troi—and made everyone fall in love with each other?”

“Only second-hand, my dear. Luckily for me, I kept to myself during those garish Bajoran festivals.”

A wicked smile. “Oh yes. Thankfully. If you had been out and about, there’s no telling who you might have fallen for,” he said with an obvious tilt to the innuendo. “Someone for whom you shared a secret desire…”

“Hmm, yes, well that Bajoran florist _was_ quite attractive.”

A scoff. “Are you trying to make me jealous, Elim? Twenty-five years later?”

“Oh, I hardly think you have a right to jealousy. You had a dalliance with then-Major Kira, if I recall.”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me. You know, we never breathed a word about it after that. Not once.” Julian blushed a pretty shade of pink.

It was one of Garak’s favorite colors on the human. “Really? _We_ talked about it.”

“What? You never told me that!”

“We had some long nights in that basement.” Garak had been so bored, and it had been such good fun to feign a fit of jealous pique and hear the Colonel splutter an unwieldy mix of outrage and apology. Come to think of it, she had turned a lovely shade of pink as well.

“Well…what did she say about—no, you know what, never mind.”

His smile strained a little, and Garak recognized the look. Julian got it more and more often these days, when they spoke about their past. The sweet pain of nostalgia. Of loss.

After the breakdown in diplomatic relations, relations of all sorts between the Federation and Cardassia had been severely restricted. Communication channels into Federation worlds were regulated and, eventually, outright prohibited for all but approved persons in government and media. Goods from the Federation were restricted to the point of being near impossible to receive. For a time, old-fashioned paper or padd letters had been the exception, but even those hadn’t been realistic options in years. There weren’t people left on Cardassia who cared enough to try.

Julian hadn’t been in contact with anyone from his former life—_their_ former life—in almost twelve years. As long as the two of them had been Enjoined.

And it rankled.

“It’s strange…it’s been sixteen years, but it feels like a whole lifetime ago.”

“It _is_ a whole new life, Julian. I’m sorry it’s had to be that way.”

Julian looked suddenly worried. “Elim, don’t—you don’t need to apologize. I wouldn’t trade what we have here—what _I_ have—for all the stars of the Federation. I just…sometimes I miss them, that’s all. You understand, don’t you?” He held up his hand, palm out, sweetly.

Elim reached forward and pressed it to his. “Of course I do, my dear. It’s normal to wax nostalgic with advancing age.”

Julian batted away his hand with a growl. “Evil man.”

“I _did_ try to warn you. And, speaking of your advancing age, you still haven’t selected the material for your _seren’Ora mijast_.”

Julian groaned in a way all too familiar. _That’s where Issi learned it, then. _“Can’t _you_ choose it? I’m useless at that, as you’re always reminding me.”

“It’s tradition, my dear.”

“_Cardassian_ tradition. Which I’m already honoring despite my general dislike for big birthday parties.”

Garak smiled and slid an exploratory hand up his leg. The light in Julian’s eyes told him it was a welcome one. Good fortune, indeed. “Oh? What makes you think this is going to be a big celebration? I’ve nothing _big_ planned.”

“Elim Garak, you are the worst liar,” he chuckled, before leaning up to kiss Garak deeply.

It burned.

There was nothing in his life that should have earned him this. This was _all_ luck.

“Doctor,” he said, pulling the other man close. “There may be hope for you yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot of setting up where we are now. We have one more chapter from Garak’s POV, the rest will be from Bashir’s. 
> 
> Next chapter, we meet Parmak, and Garak manages to make contact with someone familiar. I’m not going to lie: I’m excited to post the Parmak bit, so hopefully it won’t be too long coming.
> 
> Thank you as always for reading, and 100x thank you to anyone kind enough to kudos or comment!


	2. The River Bottom

_Chapter 2: The River Bottom_

Garak hated visiting the hospital where Julian worked. Everything there was sickeningly familiar, from the gleaming surfaces to the aura of efficiency to the antiseptic stench. Garak had worked in rooms much the same, though here stark whites and grays replaced black. In the end, though, the effect was similar, everything painted in the broad strokes of sterile, quantified pain.

Julian had caught on. Each time they met for lunch, Garak picked the café down the street or the park across the way—never the hospital cafeteria. _If I didn’t know better, _Julian had teased,_ I’d think you were afraid of doctors_.

Garak stared at the sullen, closed office door. Well, to be fair, there was certainly _one_ doctor he tried to avoid.

“Mister Paran?” the young woman at the desk said politely. She had the same glossy look of the floors in the hallway.

Paran. Yes, that was him. “Forgive me, madam. I was far away.”

She gave a nod that was a dismissal. “Doctor Parmak will see you now.”

Right on time, the old bastard. Garak took a deep breath. That stiff-backed _arret_ wasn’t going to be happy when he realized who his three o’clock really was. If they were to avoid a scene or security or any other drama that might alert Julian to his presence, Garak was going to need to find that place deep down—that cold serenity. _Like the dark, steady current at the river bottom_, Instructor Calyx used to say before a sparring match. _Away from the roiling surface and into the depths_. _That’s where the mind and body do their best work._

He steadied himself against that river bottom for only a moment longer before sweeping into the room with an unmoving smile and a deep bow. “Doctor Parmak, _s’sava_. Thank you for seeing me.”

The man sat at a sturdy desk, papers stacked neatly as if to assure visitors that work was being dealt with properly and in an orderly fashion. At the end of his long nose, round spectacles glinted. His hair was plaited down his back in that intricate Indari fashion, shocking white. It had been that way even then, some thirty years ago when they’d sat across from each other the first time.

The old man was aging well.

Garak sat.

They stared at one another. The _ramak’s_ hide chair creaked as he crossed his legs.

“Mister _Paran_.” Parmak sighed as he removed his glasses and set them on the desk in front of him. Fingers found the length of a scar below his ear, as they did whenever he saw Garak. Whether the ritual was conscious or not, Garak had never been able to tell. “I wouldn’t say it’s a pleasure.”

“Forgive my deception,” Garak said, sincere. He didn’t like starting an already unpleasant conversation this way. “I…wasn’t sure you’d see me if I’d given my name.”

“A well-founded fear. I’m not eager to sit with you, as you can imagine, Inquisitor.”

The word bounced off—at least, for now. “Nor I you, Doctor. But I’m afraid I…need your help.”

Garak had to give Parmak some credit. A lesser man might have snarled or jeered. And certainly, Garak admitted, with cause. His interrogation of Parmak, though a matter of distant years, was nevertheless a reasonable grievance. The result had been three years in a labor camp and the loss of dexterity in his right hand—a cruel price for a surgeon.

Of course, Garak hadn’t sent him to the camp. Garak hadn’t given him the scar. Garak hadn’t even tortured him. Truth be told—or at least one version of it—Garak had done little but sit and stare, much as he was doing now. Parmak had been guilty. Parmak had been sentenced. That the dissidents ended up on the right side of history didn’t change that.

But truth was a jewel with countless facets, and Garak understood how this man might have a more personal—and more bitter—version of it. He didn’t begrudge him that.

And, to Parmak’s credit, he didn’t break nearly so easily these days.

Parmak sat up straighter. “If this is a medical issue, I can recommend—“

“It’s not a medical issue.”

There was a twitch, barely there, just below the eye. The old man was trying to touch his own river bottom, it seemed. “Then I think I can say, Mister Garak, whatever help you seek is outside my purview.”

“I should be clear, _s’sava_.” A little respect never hurt. “This concerns my husband.”

The hard set of the man’s mouth softened, though eyes remained wary. Parmak and Julian got along like the flower and the rain. As much as Parmak loathed Garak, he _adored_ Julian, almost from the first day they’d met. A mutual feeling, too—and one that engendered an annoying stab of jealousy, however brief. Garak had long known Julian respected something in Parmak that he didn’t have. And it smarted.

And Parmak knew it. “Continue.”

Garak had spent his time in the waiting room thinking of the right way to broach the subject. “Perhaps you are aware of the human custom of celebrating ‘_birs’s’_—forgive me, bir_th_days?’” He tried to keep his voice light even as he tripped over the odd Standard sounds. “They’re something like _itask’haran_ but celebrated ann—“

“I’m familiar with the tradition. Julian has mentioned it.”

Parmak didn’t smile, but he didn’t need to. Garak felt it. Parmak was the only other Cardassian on the planet that used Julian’s first name. It tripped off his tongue like the glint of a knife.

“Excellent,” he somehow managed. “Well, as you may also know, Julian will celebrate his fifth _dassek_ soon. Naturally, I’m arranging his _seren’Ora_, but I’m hoping to surprise him with a number of human birthday traditions as well.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage the deception.”

River bottom, river bottom…. “Of course, I wish to invite you to attend. And I hope I may count on you to provide _erbit’sa_ as well. I know it would mean the world to Julian.”

This, at least, Parmak seemed to appreciate. “I would be honored.”

“Excellent,” he resurrected the unmoving smile and slowed, like a man trying to squeeze his cart through a narrow passageway. This was going to be the tricky bit. “And…it is the human custom to provide…gifts. Something like at a _seren’arat_, but usually, for the fiftieth birthday, I’m given to understand, the gifts are intended to be, perhaps, a bit more significant.”

He had managed to pique the other man’s interest, and Garak watched as, for a moment, Parmak forgot their enmity and put his mind to this new task. “Ahh. A gift. Thank you for telling me. I’ll begin considering options.”

Garak half-raised a hand. Somehow he knew Parmak would understand.

“Unless,” Parmak sighed, “…of course you already have something in mind.” Ahh, there was the enmity again. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he gestured impatiently for Garak to continue.

“Lately, Julian has expressed some…feelings of disquiet at being so thoroughly separated from his friends in the Federation. He hasn’t seen any of them in more than a _dassek_, now.”

“Your husband’s sacrifice is one that no one at this hospital will forget. His commitment to Cardassia and to your family is entirely admirable.”

Already working on the drekking _erbit’sa_, the bastard. He probably had it all written out, perfect and waiting. “Of course I would have to agree. Nevertheless, he is only human. His sentimentality has gotten the better of him recently, and he has begun to speak longingly about old times. Old stories. Old friends.”

“He has a gentle heart. I’m sure the separation is difficult.”

“Yes. That is why I was hoping…well, I was hoping we might invite a few of his friends from the Federation to the _seren’Ora_.”

That got the old man’s attention. His eyes widened. “Federation citizens are not permitted on Prime without express legal authorizations from either the Head Archon or the Castellan.” It was an unnecessary statement and Parmak knew it. It was a sentence to cover his shock at the suggestion. It didn’t take long for him to cover it, though, and his eyes went the opposite direction, narrowing. “But I suppose insignificant legalities are no hindrance to someone like you. Hack into the Central Hub, forge a few documents…” He made a gesture that dripped with disdain.

“The thought had occurred to me.” Up until now, he’d done his best to avoid looking Parmak directly in the eye. He knew the effect that could have, and he didn’t think it would earn him any regard in this case. But now, he couldn’t help it. He needed the other man to see—to see that he _meant_ it. “However, as I’m always trying to prove to my beloved husband, I’ve left that sort of thing _in my past_. So I thought I might try the proper way and ask for your help.”

“_My_ help? What on Prime can _I_ do?” He sat back. “I’m no good at deceptions as you’re well aware.”

Garak gave a nod and took his eyes away. “It’s common knowledge that you are a close associate of the recently-elected castellan and that many persons in the Assembly are associates from your work with the Reunionists. A well-placed word from you, _s’sava, _and a request would no doubt be given fair consideration.”

“You can make the request, Garak. Any citizen can petition the Assembly. It’s the way of things now.”

The muscles in his lower back tensed as if to brace him for the blow his ego was about to take. “You have far more influence, Doctor. A request from me would receive scorn at best and, at worst—"

“They’ll assume you’re manipulating them,” Parmak finished brutally. “Imagine that.”

They watched each other close, and Garak felt himself lose footing on that cool river bed. They were back to this. They came back to it every single time.

Several months after the Fire, with immediate wounds cauterized and bodies long buried, Garak had chosen to stay with the operation crews while Julian had joined Parmak in one of the triage hospitals. At first Garak had been asked to manage a small provisions center, handing out Federation-donated blankets, tents, and ration bars. Occasionally, when times were good, they had shoes or water filters to distribute, too.

From there, Garak had gone on to help streamline the distribution of resources to all the local provision centers. The ‘streamlining’ primarily involved discovering who in the supply chain was skimming from the top and selling or exchanging items for questionable services. People were desperate enough to do almost anything for a packet of spices or a high-volume water filter in those days. Garak had merely found those who took advantage of that fact and…persuaded them that equitable distribution would be more in their interests.

After only a year and half, Garak found himself the head _atal _for Torr district. He was given the responsibility of organizing the district’s communications, of assigning work details to all citizens drawing rations, of organizing the various growth projects, and of liaising with the Federation aid workers in their infrastructure repair work. He found he was uniquely suited to the task: his manner and history kept people in line, as did his tendency to assign known reprobates to the least desirable work details. The Federation aid workers were happy to interact with anyone who spoke Standard and didn’t look at them with complete disdain or bafflement. And, more to Garak’s surprise, he found that he _enjoyed_ the work. He was helping rebuild Cardassia in a very tangible way. Parmak and the Reunionists and their ilk were working on a grander stage, but he was the one handing food to the families. He was the one checking in to be sure the growth projects were on schedule for harvest by the sixth octal.

And then came the election.

Garak had been charged with the smooth and peaceful administration of the district’s first election. Among many things, the first official castellan would be selected.

It wasn’t an easy task. Torr was a roiling mix of progressive Reunionists and conservative Restorationists, and at a time when loss and anger still bubbled close to the surface, every speech was a potential firestarter—every debate a prelude to violence.

Julian had thrown himself into Parmak’s Reunionist cause, appalled that anyone would want to tread the same path that had led Cardassia to its ruin. Garak, however, had remained neutral. He didn’t agree with the Restorationists, of course, but a part of him-- an unreasoned, instinctive part—understood better than Julian the desire for the familiar. The former.

He understood both sides, and he took neither. He insisted that anyone assigned to help him keep the peace was of his mind, intent only on peace and not on protecting any one side. He’d turned away several volunteers who seemed more interested in advancing agendas.

Julian seemed to respect his decision.

Parmak did not.

Garak had never been entirely sure how it happened. He only knew that, one Vhelet morning when he’d gone outside to water and weed the vegetable garden, Arati Mhevet had been waiting for him with a solemn look and a padd. She seemed to have some idea what news he was to receive, and, as he’d finished reading and handed it back, stunned, she apologized. Not a _true_ apology: it was the sort of apology one gives to someone who’s injured themselves doing something idiotic. Sympathy in its most pathetic form. He hadn’t known Mhevet, who had been the de facto head of constabulary units in Torr, but he knew enough of her history to deduce her feelings about him and anyone with his past.

He had thanked her and gone back inside to make a pot of tea.

The constabulary and the interim leadership for the city agreed: Elim Garak was to be removed as _atal_ immediately and to have no role in the operation of elections or in resource provisioning. Further, he was barred from service to the interim leadership in any capacity. The directive cited the concerns of a number of anonymous citizens with his service record prior to the Fire, most especially his involvement with abductions and interrogations conducted by the Obsidian Order.

The suspension, he was informed, was temporary, pending the outcome of the election.

To be fair, after the Reunionists had taken the majority, Castellan Ghemor had been nothing but civil and had even invited Garak to discuss the matter privately in the newly-built official residence. There was nothing grand about the castellan’s residence then, and Garak remembered the uneven state of the floors. The small crack at the corner that he’d stared at as he’d listened to Ghemor apologize. Explain.

The moment Garak had seen Kelas Parmak standing behind the castellan, he’d known how the scene would play. 

Ghemor was kind and acknowledged all Garak had done since his return to Cardassia. Had thanked him for his work and his sacrifice and the risks he had taken alongside Corat Damar.

But it wasn’t enough. There was a shadow, and enough of one that they couldn’t take the risk. Ghemor had at least been good enough to appear apologetic. _You understand, don’t you?_

Garak had asked, with as much equanimity as he could muster, to be allowed to work once more in the _atal_’s office. He couldn’t be _atal_, of course, but he wanted to be useful.

When Ghemor had asked Parmak’s opinion, Parmak had met Garak’s eyes. Garak could still feel it low, in the pit of his stomach, whenever he remembered.

_I don’t believe this man should be allowed near power of any kind, Castellan._

The worst of it was Garak _did_ understand. He understood entirely.

And so Garak had opened shop and gone back to mending trousers and sewing enjoinment tunics. Castellan Ghemor had been good enough to invest a small sum in his operation and had even asked Garak to design several _mijast_s for official functions.

Julian had made a fuss, of course. He’d tried to march into Ghemor’s lean-to office, even, though thankfully, the security that stopped him had been patient and understanding of the strange human who flung flawless Kardasi curses. 

_We can fight it, p’rimit, _Julian had said_. You’ve proven yourself. You’ve proven yourself and then some._

It was the only time Julian and Parmak had ever fought.

That—Julian’s faith—had been enough, somehow. Eventually, he’d convinced Julian that it wasn’t a fight worth having. That their life—and Cardassia’s—would go on without him in public service.

_It will never be as good as it could have been,_ Julian had whispered, burying his nose in Garak’s hair and wrapping his arms around Garak’s waist.

He could still feel that, too, when he remembered it, warm and deep down. How amazingly lucky he had been.

He looked across at Parmak, and suddenly, he found the river bottom once again. He knew what he needed to do.

He needed to confess.

“Doctor, _s’sava_. I know we’ve had our…differences. But I’m asking for _Julian_. I will never be able to repay him for what he’s done. For me. For our children. For Cardassia. But I want to _try, _and I will do everything in my admittedly limited power to do so. Including begging you, if I must.”

The old man’s face was still, but his fingers tapped. Fidgeted. He stared at Garak for a long time, dark eyes never seeming to blink. Garak began to understand what it must have been. What it was to be stared down by a man who held your fate in his hands.

_I might break, too, under such eyes._

“Garak, I don’t pretend to like you. I don’t pretend to regret what’s happened, and I still believe that men like you must be kept from power at all costs.” He leaned forward on his desk, weight on elbows, fingers steadied. “But, for your husband…I will try.”

Garak smiled. A smile that moved. “Thank you, Doctor. I am immensely grateful.”

Parmak replaced his glasses and waved a dismissive hand. “Send my assistant a list of names and dates. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you, _s’sava._ I believe it will make Julian very happy.”

Though he didn’t raise his eyes, this made Parmak smile in return.

Garak had almost made it out the door, before Parmak called back.

“And Garak…?”

He froze, bracing himself.

“Next time, use your own damned name.”

Garak chuckled as he closed the door.

***********************

Though Julian often accused him of such, Garak didn’t consider himself a pessimist. He didn’t come down either way on the fundamental tilt of the universe, actually. In matters of the proverbial half-empty-or-half-full glass, Garak tended to concern himself more with whether or not he was thirsty. Neither hope nor despair seemed terribly productive.

But the moment the viewscreen chirped and he was starting into the unpleasantly surprised face of Miles O’Brien, Garak reassessed.

He’d waited until the mid-afternoon quiet of the shop, the children distracted by vidpadds and schoolwork. In northern Jalanda, it ought to be the middle of the work day just the same, which, he’d thought would give him a higher likelihood of reaching the desired party. Why she and her husband were on Bajor would, he had decided, make an excellent first topic of conversation.

But to no avail. This was the glass at its half-emptiest.

“Garak?!”

He forced a smile nevertheless. “Chief. A pleasure.”

The man blinked rather more than was necessary. He looked like a man trying to regain his footing on a trolley cart that had taken a sharp turn. “I’m, uh, I’m not ‘Chief’ anymore.” He indicated his civilian attire, a hideous pea green top Garak guessed did not improve in the bits off-screen. “I retired five years ago.”

“Ahh. Of course. Forgive me.”

“’S fine.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

Garak soldiered on. “I had thought I might connect with Professor O’Brien at this time of day…?” He tried not to sound disappointed.

He failed.

“Oh. No Keiko’s at work,” He seemed similarly unhappy with this development. “She’s usually out until around six or so.”

“I see. And…Colonel Kira? My information says she is also to be contacted at this node…?”

He glanced down at the message from Parmak to confirm. The message included, along with official communication allowances and temporary travel visas, the current locations and contact data for the listed parties. Courtesy, no doubt, of the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau, who he was sure had thoroughly researched all the names he provided. Garak didn’t like that, but he wasn’t a fool. It was hardly the first file CIB kept on him and Julian. They’d kept tabs since there was a semblance of a bureau to do so. Garak had, in fact, left a few messages here and there kindly offering to teach them more effective means of covering their tracks.

Today, however, they’d made his job easier. Especially given the discovery that, in fact, four names on his list were currently reachable via the same communication node on Bajor. An interesting story indeed, no doubt.

“She’s just ‘Kira’ now, too. She’s, uh—she hasn’t been militia since Bajor joined up.”

It was a laden statement, and Garak wanted to ask more but held his tongue. In good time.

“And yeah,” O’Brien continued. “She and Zee are with us here. But they’re out at the moment.”

“Zee?”

It took the other man a minute to understand. “Yeah, I forget. It’s been a while. Zee’s Kira’s daughter.”

He looked down at the list: her name was not included. Curious, but this would take entirely too long if he asked every question that came to mind. He brushed past it. “And Mrs. Yates-Sisko and child? They’re _also_ in residence?”

“Yeah, well, it’s Kasidy’s place, really. But she’s been off on a cargo run for the last month, and Jin’s out with Kira, too.”

This name, at least, had been included in the contact data. Jinial Yates-Sisko, age 16, daughter of the Emissary. Cardassian Intelligence must have _loved_ that.

He scrolled down the padd as if searching for some other option.

There wasn’t one.

Well…the Chief it would have to be then. “Ahh. Then I find you alone today.”

“’Fraid so.”

There was another pause in which both men acknowledged the truth. Of all those to reconnect, they were the least enthusiastic to do so.

“I thought communications on Cardassia were a bit, um, restricted. The last letter I got from Julian said they were basically prohibited.” A doubtful look. “How are you…”

The man’s distaste at the word _Cardassia_ and anything that followed it, though not entirely absent, had diminished during the intervening years, Garak was happy to note. His distaste at Garak, on the other hand…

“Not to worry, Mister O’Brien. This is a sanctioned communique. My days of circumventing security protocols are well behind me.”

O’Brien snorted, and Garak found it oddly gratifying to be disbelieved on this count.

“And I can assure you that, had any communication been possible, Julian would certainly have reached out.” Off screen, Garak allowed himself to clench and unclench his fists. “He’s missed you.”

This, at least, seemed to please the other man, and when he smiled, deep wrinkles creased his face. Time had improved him, Garak decided. He looked less dour for it. “And how is Julian? Can I speak with him?”

“I’m afraid not. However, I am calling on his behalf.”

A flicker of worry. “Is… everything alright?”

“Very much so. Julian is thriving, I’m happy to say. Everyone here in Cardassi’or is exceptionally grateful for his talents and his services. He is much adored.”

O’Brien chuckled. “God, bet he loves that, eh?”

They both shared rare, understanding smiles. “Indeed he does. But the adoration is certainly well deserved.”

A nod. “And, uh, you two…you’re…?”

“Enjoined, yes.”

The human’s expression didn’t move, but Garak knew.

Sixteen years ago, this man had tried to talk Julian out of coming to Cardassia. The last time he and Julian had spoken, this man had tried to convince Julian to come home. To convince him that resigning from Starfleet would be something Julian would regret for the rest of his life.

That fact rolled out between them in the hiss of the open communication channel.

“It’s, uh…it’s been a long time. I wish…” He made a face. Garak recognized its pinched discomfort only too well. O’Brien was a man for whom such emotions were difficult to express. It was one of the few things they had in common.

“As do we,” Garak interrupted, saving the human any fumbling for the right words. “Actually, I _was_ hoping you and Doctor O’Brien might come for a visit. And your many housemates as well.”

“A…a visit? Is that—“

“Julian’s fiftieth is fast approaching, and the fiftieth birthday is a rather important one on Cardassia.”

“I remember. Julian threw you one.”

Even the brief flash of memory—the way Julian had grabbed him and kissed him there on the holosuite—made Garak smile in earnest. Still one of the best memories of his life. “Indeed he did. And I would like to return the favor.”

“I assume, somehow, we have permission from the Cardassian government…?”

“I was able to obtain travel visas for you.”

O’Brien’s face grew wary again—as if he feared broken fingers had been a part of the process.

“As I said before, Julian is well-loved here. He’s made some powerful friends who are happy to make an exception in his singular case.”

O’Brien looked vaguely impressed. “So we’d, uh, we’d just fly in for the occasion?”

“With your permission, I can send the official invitation along with all the necessary details: dates, times, travel regulations. And, of course, while Julian and I hardly have room to lodge so many in our home, we will be more than happy—”

The quiet of the shop split in two as Issi came tromping in from the backroom, voice the same rusty whine as a phaseblade through metal. “Yaaaaad! Issen won’t—” She froze at the human face staring back through the viewscreen. “Oh. Um.” Her cheeks and neck went slate gray. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

Yes, perhaps today, the universe was tilting in a particular direction. 

He shot Issi a look—that look—but laid gentle hands on her shoulders just the same. “Mister O’Brien, this is our daughter Issi.” There was nothing for it but to make the introductions now. He would have to think of a means of keeping Issi quiet later. “Issi, this is Mister O’Brien. One of your Da’s very good friends from Earth.”

When Garak finally turned back to the viewscreen, there was a look in O’Brien’s eyes that Garak had never thought to see directed at him. It was a look of kinship. “You…you and Julian have a kid?”

“Two,” Issi volunteered. “Me and my brother. Yad and Da adopted us after our mother died from _rog’sun_ fever. When—”

“Enough, _lis’sea,” _he said as gently as he could manage, trying to turn her back towards the backroom. “Mister O’Brien will have time to hear the entire story when he visits for Da’s _seren’Ora_.”

“Whoa!” The girl’s eyes went wide. “People are coming here? From the Federation?”

“We are,” O’Brien chimed in. His voice had changed too, like an instrument fully warmed. It sounded familiar to Garak, and he realized it was the voice the man had used with his own daughter. “And we can’t wait to meet you. And your brother. And see your Da.”

Issi was too sharp, Garak knew, not to catch it. He braced himself. “But… but not to see Yad.”

Three hells, having a perceptive child could be a true pain in the _kajok_.

There was a pause, as O’Brien’s mouth opened and closed. It was quiet enough to hear the sounds of the city, muted, outside.

“_Ch’up, lis’sea_,” Garak began. “Mister O’Brien—“

“Of course, your Yad, too.” O’Brien cleared his throat and looked Garak square in the eyes with a nod. “Any friend of your Da’s is a friend of ours.”

Well…that was certainly unexpected. Garak had long accepted that he and Julian would forever have different memories of Miles O’Brien. They had never discussed it, and that suited Garak fine.

Today, Garak saw in the other man’s eyes. This was a way that, perhaps, they might find common ground.

“Of course.” He bowed his head gratefully. “We look forward to seeing you, Mister O’Brien.”

“Uh, Miles. It’s…it would be fine if…”

“Miles,” he corrected. It felt odd, using a first name, but if the human could soften his stance, Garak could make this accommodation. “Please extend my greeting to everyone, most especially Professor O’Brien. We look forward to seeing you all in a few weeks. I include, of course, your own children in that. They’ve been cleared for visas as well, should they desire.”

O’Brien—_no, Miles_—smiled even more genuinely at this.

Garak pressed a few buttons on the console. “I’m sending you the relevant details now. If you have any questions or concerns, my communication node is included. I have somewhat restricted access, but I will be available.”

“We’ll be looking forward to it.” The other man shifted a bit, and his eyes, with obvious discomfort, met Garak’s own again. “Oh, and, Garak?”

Garak paused, finger hovering over the button to disconnect. “Yes?”

“Thanks. For calling. For…doing this for Julian.”

It was O’Brien who disconnected first. Garak was grateful not to have to think of something to say in return.

Well, it was a promising start.

Occasionally, it seemed, even a half-empty glass could be refreshing.

“Yad?”

When he turned back to her, Issi’s smile was obvious.

“I’d like a rokassa from the stand across the street, please.” She held out an expectant hand.

Against his better judgement, Garak smiled back. One day, he was going to have to teach her a lesson about trying to manipulate her elders.

But not today.

He gave the plait at the back of her head a teasing tweak and pulled a credit chit from his _mijast_. “Don’t forget to get one for your brother, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention after the first chapter that I borrowed Issi and Issen's name for their fathers from teacuptribbles's fantastic fic [Things Change, My Dear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16259126/chapters/38016629). "Yad" is short for _yadik_ which is, I think, from ASIT...
> 
> This chapter had a few more things to setup so I can start knocking them down in the next. (Plus I couldn't resist depicting what I feel would be a far more likely version of how Garak and Parmak would get on post-canon). The final three chapters will be from Julian's POV. Next up, Julian and Parmak commiserate, and Julian gets a surpise. 
> 
> Thank you thank you to everyone who read, kudosed, and/or commented! I certainly hope to hear from you all as we continue!


	3. The Thing About Love

_Chapter 3: _The Thing about Love

During his first year on Cardassia, Julian had known hunger—known it in a way few in the Federation ever would. He knew the sluggish flow of thought and the tremble of limbs. The way even the scent of heated mud could make your mouth water. The muddle of emotions that jostled against an empty belly, unbidden and difficult to tamp down. Anger. Violence. Despair.

That had been _real_ want, the kind that, if you weren’t careful, could reawaken long-slumbering parts of the brain.

His stomach rumbled, and he thumbed forward on the padd trying not to think about Indari blue cream custard spread over crunchy _tak._

His hunger today was nothing like that. This hunger was self-inflicted and only thirty hours old. Nevertheless his body remembered, even fifteen years later. It snapped back into need, a small stowaway panic gibbering at the back of his mind. He needed to eat _now_, it insisted.

But this was the custom. Odd way to celebrate one’s birthday, but this was how Cardassians did it. And he did try to observe these things when he could.

He paged forward again. It didn’t help.

He put the padd down and exchanged it for the computer console built into his desk. He prodded at it absently, reviewing, for the third time that evening, the Pediatrics rotation for the next two octals. He made a half-hearted attempt to rearrange, to improve, but it didn’t take long to realize it was a farce. He was polishing new scales, as Elim would say. The schedule was fine; he’d already perfected it. _He_ was the thing that needed fixing.

“Julian?”

Framed in the open doorway, Kelas smiled as if he knew precisely what Julian was up to—precisely what he’d been thinking. Then again, Kelas almost always gave that impression. It made him seems somehow both immensely intimidating and immensely comforting at the same time. “I’m not interrupting, I hope?”

“Kelas! No, come in, come in.” He gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk.

“I don’t want to keep you. I only wanted to wish you a—” He paused, as if arranging each syllable with care. “_Hah-pee Buhrs’s-day_.”

Julian warmed, and, for a moment at least, forgot the hollow in his belly and the doldrums in his head. “Thank you, my friend. That means a lot.” Though most in the hospital knew it was his birthday, Cardassians didn’t acknowledge birthdays but once a decade, and, even then, they didn’t do so on the day itself. The birthday was a day to work and fast and contemplate, and so, for the most part, Julian was simply left alone. He’d resigned himself to this fact, though it rankled a little. It was hard to escape the impression that everyone had simply forgotten. Elim usually made a small _hala_ cake the following morning as a compromise. Sometimes with fresh _leejat_ and—

There he went again. His stomach grumbled, and he shifted in his seat, willing it to stop.

Kelas grinned but didn’t say anything as he took the seat across. “I’m glad to see you didn’t cut your hair too short.”

“Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten.” He reached up and felt the newly blunt ends which were longer than he’d been wont in his youth but at least two inches shorter than the day before. Elim had lamented having to cut even that much, but in the end, he sat behind and rubbed _kis’sa_ oil deep into the hair, snipping. With each fallen lock, he’d paused to kiss Julian’s neck.

No, the bathing and hair-cutting ritual Julian certainly didn’t mind. He could still smell the _kis’sa_ oil on the air around him. He could still feel where Elim’s hands had gripped his shoulders after, too.

He shifted for another reason entirely. “It needed to be cut a bit before summer anyway.”

“It suits you.” Kelas leaned back, and Julian knew from the look on his face, he’d definitely seen through the smiles and the talk of hair to what was beneath.

Kelas was frustratingly good at that.

“I thought I might have missed you.” He said it carefully, but Julian could sense him circling in. “Your shift ended hours ago.”

“Oh. Yeah. I just wanted to be sure I had everything in order. Make sure I’d updated the case notes for Ossun and Gisat.”

“Ossun and Gisat are excellent doctors. I’ve no doubt they’ll perform well in your stead.”

“I know. I know they will. I’m just…well, Elim and the kids will be having dinner. No sense heading home for that.”

“Everything will be fine, Julian.”

“I know. Of course I know. I’m just—“

“Julian.” He leaned forward. “_S’sarat.”_

Julian stopped, attention caught.

Sixteen years earlier, when Julian had just arrived on Cardassia, he and Kelas had worked in the same emergency unit. When they weren’t accompanying digging details, they served at triage, medicating and operating and doing whatever could be done with the few supplies on hand. It wasn’t unusual to work two or three day shifts. Often he and Kelas would sleep in one of the side tents between shifts, and it could be a full octal or more before Julian saw the tiny shack he and Elim shared. It was in those exhausted, dusty quarters he and Kelas had forged this friendship. Julian had been overwhelmed by Kelas’s devotion, knowledge, and gentleness. Kelas had been bolstered by Julian’s own tenacity and willingness to improvise. Julian had never felt as in-tune and productive with another doctor in his entire career.

Then there had been S’sarat.

There’d been a cave-in in an old building in upper Torr. The march of bodies had been endless, and he and Kelas stitched and amputated and lost and won for hours upon hours. Someone had brought ration bars, but they sat, untouched on the side table. Their makeshift surgery had become a gruesome conveyor belt. At one point, Julian had been forced to pull thread from his tunic to finish a stitch.

The second they’d brought the boy in, glassy-eyed and stiff, both he and Kelas had known it was a lost cause. But they’d tried anyway, probing the gaping wound. Cauterizing. Sterilizing. It was a sort of useless benediction, but they’d done it anyway, as if neither wanted to admit.

When it was over, the nurse had stepped in just long enough to use the dentscanner and complete the death certificate.

_And what was the cause of death?_

They had stared at one another. Though it had been just a few minutes earlier, neither could recall. They’d blinked and stammered and even Julian’s augmented mind had come up blank. The boy was nothing more than a wash of dead gray skin in a fog of it.

The nurse asked, delicately, how long they’d been working.

He’d looked to Kelas. _About 50 hours? Since Vhelet?_

Kelas nodded.

The nurse’s face had told them all they’d needed to know.

_Doctors, _she’d said, handing him a small, precious cup of water and forcing a ration bar into his hand._ It’s S’sarat_. 

It had been four days.

Ever since, when either of them had been pushing themselves too hard or refusing to step away or simply neglecting home and health, a simple “_s’sarat”_ was all that was needed to be said. It was a sign to put down the scalpel or the hypo or the regenerator and take a rest.

Julian sighed and pushed back in his chair. And it was a reminder he needed now, as he very well knew. “You’re right, Kelas.”

“Everything here will be _fine_. We can comm you if there are any major concerns.”

“I know! And, of course, I trust you. And Ossat and Gisun. It’s not that. And I’m happy for the time with Elim and the kids. But…you know it’s hard to step away. Vret, I haven’t been gone for two octals since we adopted the twins.”

“And even then, you were in and out of here more than was good for you,if I recall,” Kelas chastised. “I don’t want you in and out of here, Julian. It’s your fifth _dassek_. You should celebrate it. _Enjoy_ it.”

“Ugggg,” he moaned, scrubbing at his face. “Fifty years. Please don’t remind me.”

“Is this more of that ridiculous human obsession with youth?” Kelas clicked his teeth in dismissal. “I fail to understand how a healthy, accomplished man—“

“I know, I know. ‘Power and dignity.’ You sound just like Elim.”

Kelas sniffed, cooling, and Julian instantly regretted saying it. Elim was the one topic he and Kelas did better not to discuss.

He set the padd down on his desk and sighed. “It’s not the age, really. It’s just… Well, first, I’m bloody starving.”

He was happy to see that this managed to smooth over the awkwardness. “That I understand. Human’s aren’t equipped for hunger.”

It was the sort of statement Julian had balked at early on but that, now, he had to admit, was true. Cardassians did tend to have sturdier constitutions. A fact Elim never failed to remind him of. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“And, second…?”

He should have known that the older man wasn’t going to let it go that easily. “It’s the _seren’Ora._”

That did surprise him. “The _seren’Ora_?”

“Yeah…I mean, I’m sure Elim has something lovely planned. He’s ace at that sort of thing. It’s just … I guess I’m starting to understand how he must have felt. During those years on the station.”

Julian appreciated Kelas trying, despite how very much the other man obviously didn’t enjoy this topic. “And how is that?”

Julian had gone back to the memory many times in the last few days. Twenty years earlier, when he and Elim had sat at their replimat table and argued about whether or not Julian should throw him a _seren’Ora_. How Elim had grimaced, the pain concealed but just visible still, at the corner of the eyes. In the strained placement of the hands and set of the shoulders. _It is wholly inappropriate, for a variety of reasons you can’t understand._

He did understand, a bit, now. “He felt alone.”

A slow blink and a fractional tilt of the chin. “You’re far from alone, Julian. And your _seren’Ora_ is a chance for us to show you that. A chance for us to express our gratitude for the sacrifices you have made.”

“And _I’m_ grateful for it. Don’t think I’m not! The life I’ve built here… I would make every choice precisely the same. None of it has felt like a sacrifice.”

The words dropped from Kelas’s lips not harsh but unflinching. “Until now.”

Julian couldn’t admit that. Couldn’t even nod in assent. “The whole purpose of this _seren’Ora_ is to look back on who I’ve been. What I’ve done. On how I’ve contributed to my friends, family, community. But so many of my friends—those who I’ve known and cared for—won’t be mentioned. Won’t speak. Can’t be there. More than half of my life will just be…missing.”

Kelas’s half-chuckle seemed absolutely out of place, and Julian checked himself, wondering if somehow he’d said something amusing. It did still happen, occasionally, that he stumbled into some bit of phrasing that had a second meaning. It still happened more than he wanted to admit, actually, though it wasn’t his fault that there was such an overlap between phrases for tailoring and sex in Kardasi. Sometimes he wondered if Elim led him into the entendres purposely, actually.

Eventually, Kelas’s amusement settled and he crossed his legs casually. “I’m sorry…I was just remembering…Enabran Tain attended my _seren’Ora_, did you know that?”

Julian shook his head. He liked hearing that name about as much, he imagined, as Kelas liked saying it.

“Oh yes. He gave a very winning speech, too. Ear-splitting _krek_ after.” Kelas’s eyes grew distant. “He brought a bottle of 2325 _breet_ vintage. It tasted like _babat_ melons on the finish, I recall. And he danced with my sister. I’d never seen her so nervous. Probably thought she’d be taken in for detention if she flubbed the _mor’ij_.” A gentle chuckle. “It was a beautiful night, the events that came after notwithstanding. Full of surprises, as a good _seren’Ora_ should be.”

Julian couldn’t help but smile along with him. It reminded him of that night in the holosuite. Dancing, kanar, Cardassian stars. A kiss that still caused a dizzy little rush when he thought of it. 

“And not a single one of the people who attended that _seren’Ora_ is alive now.”

The rush turned heavy. Sank and stabbed with the heat of guilt. _God, Julian. Of course._

“These days, _itask’haran_ is as much about the bravery to continue. To rebuild and remake.” He smiled and leaned forward, laying a gentle hand on Julian’s desk. “If half your life is missing, then truly, my friend, you are one of us.”

It was true, and he felt like an ass for not thinking of it sooner. Every Cardassian had lost their life from before. Every _seren’Ora_ was now a story of what had come after. That was the song of every Cardassian life.

From the very start, Julian had known Kelas would be different. The older, bespectacled man had appraised him over ration bars and hydration packs after their first day combing the ruins. His voice had seemed too strong for the slight, stooped man who produced it.

_You’re not very Cardassian_, he’d said.

Julian had braced himself for the worst: he’d known he’d face such prejudice. Cardassians weren’t exactly known for their warm embrace of outsiders.

_I’m _not_ very Cardassian, _he’d admitted in his best Kardasi, offering a smile. _But I will try to learn_.

Kelas had simply smiled back. _Oh, I do hope not. I’m not so very Cardassian myself._

Whatever fates had put this man in his path, had been kind. Not to Elim, perhaps, but certainly to him.

“As always, Kelas, you’re right.”

“Just what I like to hear,” he joked, giving Julian a pat on the shoulder. “Do keep that in mind for my tenth _dassek_. I expect to hear something to that effect in your _erbit’sa_.”

Julian laughed. “I’ll add it to the draft.”

“Now…I understand that it’s customary for humans to give gifts on every _itask’haran_, including the fifth _dassek_?”

“Actually, we give gifts every year, yeah.”

Kelas looked a little surprised.

“Yes, I know. Decadent. Elim is always reminding me.”

“Ah. Well, while a gift will hardly be appropriate at your _seren’Ora_, I’ve brought you a little something this evening. For your buhrs’sday.”

Oh. That _was_ unexpected. How many birthdays had he celebrated here? Even one _itask’haran_. This was his first gift from anyone other than Elim and the kids. “Kelas. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Rather the point of a gift, I understand,” he said dryly, setting it down on the desk between them.

It was a small ceramic circle covered over only by white linen. When Julian made no move, Kelas reached forward and drew away the cover.

The smell hit him immediately. Heaven.

“_Tak_!” It was in his mouth before he’d even thought. The sweet blue cream melted, all fat and sugar and umami against his desperate tongue. It was the most delicious thing he’d tasted in at least the last _dassek_. “Oh guls. I’ve been thinking about _tak_ with cream all day.” He made a number of other noises that might have embarrassed him in a less ravenous state. “And this is homemade cream, isn’t it?”

“Just like Amma used to make.” The words were half a laugh.

Julian wiped at his lips, a little in awe that he’d finished the entirety of the _tak_ in such a short go. “You, um, you won’t tell anyone I broke my fast, will you?”

“Your secret is safe with me.” He peered over his spectacles, mock severe. “As long as you promise to go home to your family and _relax_.”

He put a solemn hand over his heart and tightened his shoulder in the manner of a solider with marching orders. “Yes, _s’sava_.”

“And who knows. Perhaps your _seren’Ora_ will surprise you. I have a bottle of breet vintage itching to be decanted.” A flicker of discomfort. “And, say what I might about your husband, he threw a lovely Enjoinment. I expect this will be nothing less.”

Julian knew precisely what that admission cost Kelas, and he smiled. Yes, this whole fugue of his was ridiculously ungrateful. How lucky he was. To have a friend like Kelas. To have two, healthy amazing children. To have a husband he cared for and who put up with his long hours and his sloppy housekeeping and his insistent refusal to pick out anything relating to his _seren’Ora, _even with it only two octals away.

It was a new life, yes, but a fantastic one. One so many had been denied.

He gave Kelas a long embrace, put his travelpadd in his pocket, and headed home.

*************************

Julian had learned many things since becoming a father. Some lessons were, of course, of the broader, more philosophical sort. The sort Miles had gone on and on about when you got him sozzled enough. How your perspective on life changes. How you understand the shape of existence more deeply. How it throws your parents’ actions into an entirely different light—for better or worse.

But just now, as Julian stepped through the front door to find only silence and darkness, he reflected on one of the more practical lessons of parenthood.

When things are quiet, something is wrong.

He paused and listened and heard nothing. He could see a short way down the corridor. The lights were off, doors shut tight.

“Elim?” He flipped on a lamp and listened closely.

There was no answer.

Somewhere deep in his gut, _tak_ and fear rumbled. “Elim?”

They should be here. It was dinner time, and Elim was relentless about keeping the kids on a schedule. If they’d gone somewhere, Elim would have commed.

He pulled out his padd to check. He already knew he’d see nothing.

“Issen? Issi?” 

From down the hall—perhaps from the dining room?—came the listless shuffle of a chair.

He inched forward far enough to see a pool of light spilling through. There was someone there. He could hear the rise and fall of breath.

Julian’s mind provided, in a flash, every session of Starfleet hand-to-hand combat training he’d suffered through at the Academy. And then the more practical go-for-the-soft-bits training Elim had insisted on giving him when they’d arrived on Cardassia.

“Elim, if that’s you, and you’re trying to pull some sort of—”

But it wasn’t Elim. It wasn’t Elim at all.

Not-Elim was sitting at the dining table, grinning. In front of him, recently decanted, was a bottle of what Julian’s nose informed him was scotch.

The smell of the scotch and the rich Indari cream and the rush of adrenaline churned together in his stomach and spun in his head. He might have fainted.

He settled on a nice long swear instead.

“Kiss yer mum with that mouth, do ya’?”

Julian couldn’t speak. He could hardly move.

So Miles did it for him, wrapping him in a long, warm embrace.

Sixteen years it had been, but time meant nothing to Julian’s augmented mind. He remembered each embrace he and Miles had shared precisely: each handshake, each pat on the back. The two of them had never touched for longer than two point four-seven seconds. That was just Miles’s way.

This hug lasted a full five seconds.

“Miles…I…I…” He pulled back to check the other man’s face. To look at it. To be sure, as Elim liked to say, he wasn’t behaving like a tender-scaled hatchling who didn’t know a sandviper from a sarnak vine. “It’s really you! What on Prime are you doing here?”

“A little Cardassian birdie told me someone was having a birthday party.”

“You’re…you’re here for my _seren’Ora_?”

“Ah, yeah. _Seren’Ora_. That’s the one.” Julian knew the man well enough to know that he’d had at least one glass already.

“But… how? How did you…?”

“Dunno the specifics, but apparently a few of your friends were able to get us temporary travel permits. Customs was bloody brutal, and I’ve never seen a travel regulations list like the one the lady at the shuttleport gave us, but…” He shrugged. “I got the scotch through.”

“Thank goodness for small victories,” Julian mumbled, beginning to feel happiness unravel against the shock. A few of his friends…it was Kelas. Had to be. That bastard had been in on it the whole time. Probably why he was so insistent Julian go home.

Suddenly, he couldn’t help but laugh. “I—I can’t believe it.” He reached out a hand to clap Miles on the shoulder as well. It was as much to prove that the other man was real as anything else.

“Me neither, but…” He gestured to the room around them.

God, Julian had missed this. He hadn’t really realized until they were both standing there, together, in the flesh, with the sharp tang of MacCallan’s on the air. He could almost cry—might have, if he hadn’t also known how uncomfortable it would make Miles.

Something in the twinkle of those brown eyes told him it didn’t need to be said. Miles knew. He was feeling it, too. “Now, Doctor Bashir. Sit down and have a nip and tell me exactly how you ended up married with two kids an’ I didn’t know.”

They talked for a while about Elim and the twins. They talked about his job at the hospital and Elim’s tailoring shop. They talked briefly, through sips, about fatherhood. But as much as they talked of what had changed, Julian was struck by how much hadn’t. They fell into it as if no time had passed. The only indication of the sixteen years between, in fact, were the lines across their faces and the slow, careful pace with which they drank. At this age you couldn’t be too cautious.

He smiled as he swirled the offending liquor in his glass. Couldn’t stop smiling actually. “And you? I imagine you’re over the whole Engineering Department at the Academy now, eh?”

A slight grimace and a sip. “Well, I was. I was. For a couple of years there, actually. And Keiko was in the Botany department, and Molly was actually studying there, too. Not, er, botany, but at the Academy.”

“Oh? Is she an officer now?”

“A counselor. On the _USS Lorde_. But she was there with us for a bit, which was nice.”

“But…?”

“Oh, well, Keiko got offered a job at the central university in Jalanda. Er, on Bajor. Big promotion. Head of Biological and Environmental Sciences. And they were doing some agricultural research on soil reclamation that was right up her alley.” He shrugged.

“Wow, that’s fantastic. But—I mean, you two aren’t living apart again?” At the time Miles and Keiko had been apart on the station, Julian had been too young and self-obsessed to really consider what that was like for Miles. Maybe he couldn’t really have known until he had a husband and children of his own.

“No, no. Neither of us wanted that again. I was eligible to retire and…well, she’d left her job for me before. Just seemed fair. So we moved to Bajor. Keiko works at the university; Kirayoshi is there. We moved in with Kasidy and Jake and Jini; it was supposed to be temporary, but, you know, we never left. She’s on Captain Sisko’s land still. Lots of room. I even have a workshop out back. With room to putter. It’s relaxing, and Keiko’s dead happy. Which means I am, too, when it comes to it.”

Julian smiled. “Miles. You’ve gotten soft in your old age.”

The other man snorted. “Yeah, well, that’s marriage, isn’t it? You understand. You…you did that for Garak.”

Garak. _Elim_.

A warm lurch of joy that hit him sideways. Elim had done this. Had planned this—helped make this possible.

How was he ever going to repay him? “I did.”

“And you’re dead happy, looks like?” Miles asked.

Julian nodded. It was more true than he could possibly express. “An understatement.”

Miles picked up his glass—picked it up but didn’t drink. He looked into it instead. “I was wrong, Julian.” He said it simple, clean. “You made the right choice coming here. And staying with him.”

The burn at the back of Julian’s throat was more than that of scotch. He pressed the tears back with a pull.

“Can’t believe Garak managed to make an honest man of you. Shoulda, though. Keiko told me. Been gloating like you wouldn’t believe ever since we got here.” He seemed to remember something. “Shite, speaking of, what time is it?”

Julian glanced at the chrono on the wall. “Almost eight. What do you mean? Is Keiko here, too?”

“Yeah, and she’ll have my skin if we’re not on time.” He pushed the top back into the bottle and stood quickly. “Let’s hope that skimmer Garak left can move ‘cause we’re already ten minutes late.”

“Late?” Julian stood, too. He was happy to note that standing posed no difficulty. “Late for what?”

And then, suddenly, he understood. There wasn’t going to be a _seren’Ora_ two octals from now.

This was going to be a birthday party.

“Oh, and, uh, you’d better get changed.” Miles gestured to the end of the table.

Hanging over one of the chairs was the most luxurious, perfect tuxedo Julian Bashir had ever seen.

*******************

The _seren’Ora_ pavilion Elim had chosen was not the most popular or the largest in the city. In fact, it was tucked into one of Cardassi’or’s smaller parks, just past the Darvat and well removed from the pomp of Tarlak. This park, however, was Julian’s favorite. He and Elim had strolled here twelve years ago, when they’d had the most important discussion of their lives. When he’d told Elim he intended to stay and that he didn’t give a damn what that meant for his career. It was the only time in their almost twenty years that he’d seen Elim Garak obviously moved. Elim had proposed Enjoinment that very moment, there, just beside the river where this pavilion stood. Back then, the _ithian_ trees had been saplings; the fields bare, yellow dirt.

Now white blossoms glowed in the light of the moons overhead, and tall _harat_ grasses stretched to the horizon. The pavilion itself, though modest, shone, golden light rolling down its steps, welcoming its guests. Around the eaves, gilded Kardasi script traced lines from Kavit’s most famous _seren’Ora_ work. Lines Elim had recited at their children many times. _Though the mighty tree grows tall, lo! its humble roots dig deep; though our fathers must pass on, we their humble words shall keep._

It didn’t bode well that he was almost in tears before he’d made it to the top of the steps.

The almost tears, however, converted to ridiculous grins the moment he saw it.

A typical _seren’Ora_ wasn’t much on decorations—a fact he’d been grateful for when programming Elim’s. But this pavilion was practically drenched in streamers, and he had to admit that the teal color was a fantastic complement to the deep golds and umbers of the architecture. Balloons—proper human balloons—floated at the pavilion’s ceiling. The rafters were hardly visible past the blanket of them. At the back, centered in a place of prominence on the wall, a banner proclaimed in the shaky, careful style of the very young _HAPPY BIRS’SDAY DOCTOR BASHIR._ He didn’t need to be told: it had been the children at the hospital, no doubt.

It was perfect. So bloody perfect.

“Julian! Miles!” He hadn’t noticed Keiko O’Brien hanging streamers, until she spoke. “You’re late.” Her frown was sweet and indulgent and, when she embraced him, Julian laughed.

“It’s my fault, Keiko,” he sighed, squeezing a little tighter. “Been awhile since I tried to get into a tux. Had a little trouble.”

He started to ask about their trip and if she’d met the kids yet, when he saw Elim step into the pavilion from the opposite side and all other thoughts left him.

Well, that was certainly a sight he hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

He grinned in what he knew must be the most stupid manner. “Nice tux.”

He was gratified to see the other man return his smile. “Same to you, my dear.” 

Julian stepped forward and adjusted his husband’s bow tie with one hand. The other found its way, light and hungry, to rest on Elim’s chest. He hadn’t thought it was possible, really, to love someone as much as he loved his husband in this moment. He thought he might burst with it.

He settled, instead, for a gentle touch to the other man’s aural ridge and a fond look. “I thought your days of being able to lie to me were long over.”

“Hmm. I do like to keep you guessing, dear Doctor.” A tilted grin and a shrug. “I believe this is the part where I’m meant to shout ‘surprise’?”

“That it is.” He leaned forward and kissed his husband. He’d had every intention of making the kiss brief and chaste, but once their lips touched and he felt the tight spun cotton under his hands, he found that chaste simply wouldn’t do. He parted Elim’s lips with his own and closed what little space remained between them. He could hear Miles clear his throat and direct Keiko’s attention to the river and the Darvat visible just from the western side.

Julian took his time.

When they finally parted, Elim was blinking, pupils wide as dinner plates. Good to know he wasn’t the only one having to contain himself.

“Don’t think you’re going to distract me with your wiles, _p’rimit_,” Elim tutted, taking a step back and straightening himself. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Damn. He _had_ hoped Elim wouldn’t notice, as rare an occurrence as that was. Or that he might take pity.

“I laid it out with your tuxedo, did I not?”

Julian sighed and, knowing, after so many years of marriage, when argument was pointless, he pulled the hat from his jacket pocket and fixed the elastic band under his chin with a sigh. “These are for _children_, Elim.”

“Well, then, I won’t make you wear one for your tenth.”

It was a unique quality of Elim Garak, Julian had often considered, that you could just as often punch him as kiss him. “I look ridiculous.”

“Only you could look both ridiculous and ravishing at the same time.” This time, it was Elim who closed the space between.

“Come on,” Julian managed to breathe between kisses. “Let me take off the hat, Elim. I—”

The request was momentarily smothered under insistent Cardassian lips. “Mmm. And what else might I convince you to take off, my dear?”

“Elim Garak! In this public place, in a—”

“And here I thought I’d seen the most disturbing things this planet had to offer.”

Both men recognized the voice instantly, and the effect was dramatic, propelling them away from one another like two guiltily necking teenagers.

Once again, Julian could hardly believe his eyes. “_Nerys_?”

When she smiled, lines traced at the corners of her eyes in perfect complement to the ridges at her nose. “Julian.”

They embraced, and Julian found himself struggling for words. Struggling as he began to realize that more than the O’Briens would be in attendance.

“Nerys…I… you’re on Cardassia.”

“Yeah, well, Miles said if he had to come, so did I.” Behind her, two younger people had stepped up as well. The young man, a human, was willowy and wore a forced expression as though he was trying—and failing—to feign enthusiasm. The young woman, on the other hand, looked absolutely overwhelmed by everything around her. She was Cardassian.

Julian didn’t recognize either until he went to shake the young man’s hand and stopped short. “Wait…Kirayoshi!”

The boy—no, no he was a young man now!—blushed. The resemblance to Miles was uncanny. “Yeah. Hey, Doctor Bashir. Happy Birthday.”

“You’re talking now, I see,” he joked. “Gar, I can’t believe it. You’re all grown up!”

“You’re telling me,” Kira said. “He’s been taller than me for three years now.”

Up until then, Elim had stood back politely, but now took a smooth step forward and gave the young Cardassian woman a very formal nod. “And this must be Miss Ziam Kira, if I’m not mistaken? I am most especially happy to welcome you, my dear. Cardassia welcomes you again.”

The young lady looked uncertain how—or whether—to accept this. “I…I go by Kira Ziam.”

And now Julian made the connection: Miles had told him the story. Kira lived on Sisko’s land as well, along with her adopted daughter. Kira had adopted the girl years ago, from one of the orphanages that still housed Cardassian war orphans. Ziam had been sitting in the foyer, legs folded, painting a flower. _Said she reminded her of Ziyal_, Miles had reported. But instead of the sweet, even-tempered voice Kira had expected, the young girl, around ten at the time, had looked up, narrowed her eyes, and asked Kira what she was gawking at.

Kira had brought her home four days later, and no one had questioned it a jot. She’d given Kira a second lease on life, Miles said, after her resignation from the militia. Which, of course, was another story, Julian imagined. And one he’d save for later in the night. After a few more drinks, maybe.

For now, he simply gave Ziam a bow which she, uncomfortably, returned. “A pleasure to meet you, Ziam. How are you finding the new Cardassia?” He knew, technically speaking, he shouldn’t use her first name, according to Cardassian traditions. But the girl had used the Bajoran formation, and so he guessed she wouldn’t be too much of a stickler. And frankly, sometimes, Julian got tired of the fuss Cardassians made about names.

“It’s…different than I remember. But it’s nice to see the river again.” The stretched smile on the young woman’s face made it clear than this politeness was not entirely without pain. “And…and thank you, Garak S’Sava, for the _pas’set_. It’s…I haven’t worn one in years.” She smoothed at the intricate white dress she wore.

Julian hardly had time to wonder when and how Elim had begun sewing dresses for visiting war orphans before a new young woman joined them, giving Zee a cheerful clap on the back. “And it looks great, doesn’t it?”

No one had to introduce Julian to this young woman—every inch of her face proclaimed that she was her father’s daughter, down to the penetrating warmth of the brown eyes and the wide welcome of the smile. Kassidy wasn’t far behind her, and Jake, too. They all of them wrapped Julian in warm hugs, even before Jake paused to introduce Jinial Yates-Sisko, or Jini as she insisted on being called. She wore a Bajoran earring and on it, Julian recognized the symbol of the Emissary. At this, Julian couldn’t help the pang. He’d hoped he might see the Emissary step into the pavilion and wrap him in a hug, too.

Something of the thought must have shown on his face, as Kassidy took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Ben’s sorry he can’t be here, but he says ‘hi.’ And that he’ll definitely make it for your tenth.”

Julian didn’t doubt it. He knew Sisko would keep his promise, and, from the smile on Kassidy’s face, she knew, too.

He didn’t have much time to dwell on sad thoughts, however, as the Chancellor of Q’onos entered, singing the _taH-yay-rin-hagh_—the ballad of victory over time—in raucous, celebratory tones Julian was entirely certain had never been used in a Cardassian _seren’Ora_ pavilion. Beside him, Worf looked only slightly uncomfortable, though whether from the surroundings or the chancellor’s singing it was difficult to tell. He handed Julian a crate of bloodwine, and, when Julian looked surprised, Martok assured him there were several more crates—they wouldn’t dare to scant a celebration.

If Julian was surprised to see two Klingons given leave to attend, he was even more surprised to see the slight figure of Ezri Dax waiting behind them, clad in full dress uniform, communicator polished to a high shine. For a moment, in fact, he didn’t move—just stared.

My, but she looked different now, too. Older but also more sure—more her own person than when they’d said goodbye. She stood straighter, and the look she gave him had no one else behind it. She’d made the right choice, too, he could tell, leaving DS9 after the war.

“Nice hat.” Ahh, but there was that glimmer of the familiar--a twinkle of mischief that was Dax through and through.

He pulled her into a hug, pausing only long enough to take the ridiculous hat off first.

“Julian…it’s good to see you.” She gave him a peck on the cheek. “And to see you like _this_. What a life you’ve made.”

“And look at you! Miles said you’ve been spearheading the refugee resettlement work with the Romulans? I’m surprised the Diplomatic Corps could spare you!”

Another shared smile in which they both acknowledged that what he really meant was that he couldn’t believe either the Federation or Cardassian government had agreed to it.

“Even we diplomats get a few days off, here and there. And I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather—oooh!”

She staggered out of the path of two charging Cardassian children who were both enthusiastically chasing a third with a balloon. In fact, a number of children appeared to be in various stages of awe over the unique Earth birthday décor. In a corner, Issi was lecturing a gaggle of younger Cardassian children on the use of the noise-makers, which she had charmingly translated into Kardasi as _barri-barriada_ or “fun-screamer.” One very eager toddler played a repetitive, grating rhythm on his _barri-barriada_ before a parent scooped him up for a hushed but enthusiastic talking-to.

It wasn’t only the children, in fact. Several of his colleagues were holding a balloon up to the light, rotating it curiously and prodding it with their claws.

“This is going to be the talk of the hospital tomorrow.”

Julian’s first thought upon seeing Kelas was that he was almost an entirely different man in his formal _mijast, _polished and put-together in a way Julian never saw at the hospital. Lavender sand-silks made the man’s eyes sparkle, and the braid over his shoulder was the same white as the _ithian_ blossoms all around. He gave Ezri a warm smile and a formal bow, introducing himself with an ease Julian wouldn’t have expected given the situation between their two governments. Ezri responded with equal warmth—a born diplomat—before she excused herself to say hello to the O’Briens.

“A lovely young woman,” Kelas said, before turning his attention back to Julian. “Can I hope, then, that your _seren’Ora_ is looking a little more—“

He didn’t let Kelas finish. He buried the man in an enthusiastic hug.

There was a splutter and a few indistinct noises of surprise before the other man hugged him back, though with obvious awkwardness.

Julian didn’t let that cut it short. He let every last ounce of gratitude make itself known.

“I’ll—I’ll take that as a yes,” Kelas mumbled after he’d been released.

“Guls and gettle, Kelas. Of _course_ it’s a yes. I—I couldn’t have imagined. I _can’t_ imagine how much work it must have been to get all these people here. It _can’t _have been easy.” And it couldn’t have been, Julian knew. Kelas had influence, it was true. He’d been one of the Reunionist founders, and, over the years, though Cardassian politics wobbled occasionally, the Reunionists had been the most consistent force in Cardassia’s new ideological trajectory.

All discomfort disappeared from Kelas’s face. He set a soft hand on Julian’s arm. “What _you_ have done for Cardassia hasn’t been easy, either, I know. This is a portion of repayment.”

Seeing Elim reappear beside him, Kelas withdrew his touch.

Elim, of course, had no reaction whatsoever. He looked, if anything, distracted and ever so slightly annoyed, hand full of a number of noisemakers.

“Everything alright, Elim?”

“Yes…yes. But I’m beginning to think these ‘_barri-barri’_s might have been a miscalculation.” He closed his eyes for only a moment as another noisemaker screeched across the pavilion. “Forgive my rudeness. Good evening, Doctor Parmak.”

Kelas stiffened slightly. He always did when he saw Elim. Julian understood and tried to keep their encounters rare.

“Good evening, Mister Garak.” Kelas’s smile was _almost_ easy. “And may I say you have done a marvelous job in arranging this.” He gestured around the pavilion. “It’s…it’s quite something.”

Elim, similarly, was rarely himself when speaking to Kelas. He tended to transform in a way more than a little familiar to Julian, full of fawning politeness and breezy charm. _Plain and simple_. It opposed Kelas’s cool stiffness entirely, but it was borne, no doubt, of the same emotion.

“Thank you, Parmak, _s’sava_. Though, of course, none of it would have been possible without you.”

There was a beat of quiet as thick and as dense as the late spring air.

“Well…” Kelas swallowed, and, obviously reaching, gestured to Julian’s tux. “Is this typical _itask’haran_ garb on Earth?”

“Oh… it’s traditional formal wear on Earth, yes.”

“Quite dapper. Though, if you don’t mind my saying so, they seem a bit…complicated.”

“Oh, that they are,” Elim inserted silkily, parting his jacket to gesture to the waistcoat and shirt beneath. “And _not_ ideal for temperature regulation. A lovely tailoring challenge, but I feel quite ridiculous wearing it.”

Julian couldn’t help but smirk. Elim was playing nice, and he knew it was for his benefit. _Happy Birthday to me. _He tugged Elim’s jacket shut with a smirk. “I think there was something about looking ridiculous and ravishing at the same time...?”

Elim huffed, but his eyes, in a rare moment, betrayed him. “Julian, my dear, we have _guests_.”

“Oh, please, allow me to remove myself,” Kelas chuckled, holding up his hands.

And he might have, too, had not, at that precise moment, four large Cardassians entered the pavilion at a tromp. Each was near two meters tall and dressed in severe slate gray from head to toeclaw. There was no mistaking it. These weren’t party guests: they were soldiers.

“Elim…”

His husband’s face had gone blank.

Blank was Elim’s most worried expression.

“Elim, who…?”

“They’re _vhas’sak_,” he said, voice matter-of-fact in a way his eyes were not.

“_Vhas’sak_? Here? Who would they be—“

“I don’t know, Julian.”

Julian knew when he was being told, albeit politely, to shut his mouth.

Technically, the _vhas’sak_ worked for the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau but were more soldiers than intelligence operatives. They were typically assigned to protect the most powerful politicians and diplomats in the Union. Early on, when elections had still be fraught, one had been assigned to shadow Kelas for a time.

“Parmak?” Elim’s voice had grown sharper. “What is this—“

The _vhas’sak_ parted.

“Doctor Bashir!”

The lamplight glinted off the gold threads of the Ferengi’s tunic as he stepped from between the _vhas’sak_ to clap a very confused Julian on the back.

Julian opened his mouth, and closed it again, words never quite managing to form.

“Happy Birthday, Doctor! May your ledgers stay black and all your investments yield dividends!”

“Qu-Quark?” Julian hardly had enough surprise left over to note that the Ferengi hadn’t aged a day.

“The one and only,” he said, shifting his shoulders in an attempt to adjust the clearly uncomfortable Cardassian _mijast_ he wore. “I don’t know how you people wear these things,” he said, turning to Garak. “The material’s so light I feel almost—“ He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Naked.”

“Hello, Quark.” Garak was clearly not amused.

“Quark…what are you doing with _vhas’sak_?”

“Doctor. Living on Cardassia has ruined your manners. What kind of greeting is that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Quark. It’s great to see you.”

“I’m touched,” he deadpanned before turning to the _vhas’sak_ to give a nod. “But believe me, it’s _my_ pleasure.”

Julian was vaguely aware that, during his early years on the station, Cardassia’s newly-elected castellan had briefly sought refuge on Deep Space Nine. Their paths hadn’t crossed, but Garak had mentioned a few details of it over lunch, including the alarming tidbit that the woman had, apparently, been a lover of Quark’s. It was the sort of gossip Julian had wished his augmented mind could forget. He didn’t really care to keep the words “lover” and “Quark” in the same sentence.

But the memory of it came roaring back now at the unmistakable buzz of amazement whispering through the pavilion.

The newly-elected Castellan Lang took Quark’s arm with a warm smile.

When Julian turned to look at Elim, he found only blank surprise on the man’s face.

Kelas looked much the same.

Everyone, did, in fact, frozen and staring.

Julian cleared his throat and offered the castellan the traditional formal bow. “You honor me, Castellan Lang.”

Her laugh was gentle and, with its lightness, swept away the stodgy formality on the air. “Doctor Bashir, I presume. The honor is mine. _Ghenar vo’it_. And…_Happy Birs’sday._” 

Elim, who seemed to have regained his sense of place and slid forward, offered a sketched bow before extending the basket of _kur’yurut_ to her. “Castellan, _s’savi.” _There was a hint of fussiness about his movements that Julian might almost have called nerves. A rarity from Elim.

“Mister Garak.” When Elim raised his eyes, Julian didn’t miss the slight linger of recognition that passed between. What such a look meant, Julian wouldn’t have even tried to guess, but it was clear there was more to their story than Elim had passed on over lunch. “A pleasure to see you again.”

“We’re honored to have you among us. If I’d known to expect you, I certainly would have prepared a more appropriate placement at the table.” Julian didn’t know the details, but he did know that someone of the Castellan’s stature should have been given special provisions, the highest seat at the table, a separate menu, and any other number of small concessions that Julian couldn’t name but which he felt sure would be very important to Elim. 

And, though he was sure no one else would read it, Julian saw the distress in his husband’s eyes.

“Forgive me for dropping in like this.” Lang lifted her palm up and to the side in the traditional gesture of apology. “When I saw Quark’s name on the list, I’m afraid I simply wanted to be a non-descript plus-one for the night. As much as that’s possible.” She gave the Ferengi on her arm a little wink: Quark’s returned smile was as soft a look as Julian had ever seen the man give anyone. “Please don’t go to any trouble for me.”

Elim bowed again deeply as the Castellan moved on to greet Parmak and several of the other Cardassian doctors.

Elim stood and watched, saying nothing.

Twelve years of marriage—and far more of being together—had taught Julian how to read such silence.

“Elim…are you alright?”

As if his voice had broken some sort of trance, Elim moved again and gave him a tight nod. “Of course, my dear. I only wish I’d known the Castellan was attending.”

“Doesn’t sound like she wants a fuss.”

“Yes, but I certainly would have worn something a little less outrageous, I think.”

Julian laughed. All these years and everything he'd been through, and a fashion faux pas was still one of the only things that could shake Elim Garak. “I wouldn’t hear of it. It’s my birthday, isn’t it?” Julian, tutted, putting a long, gentle kiss on Elim’s lips. “I like you outrageous.”

Whatever clouds still clung dissipated entirely, replaced with a wry smile. “Well, at least you took off the hat.”

They threaded arms, and Julian joined his husband in watching the Castellan introduce Quark as her "dearest friend from Terok Nor." The Cardassian guests seemed skeptical, but Julian wasn't. It was hard to miss the way Quark looked at her.

“What a strange match…Quark and the Castellan of Cardassia,” Julian sighed, letting his head rest on Elim’s lazily. “I can’t say I understand it.”

“That’s the thing about love,” Elim said, drawing Julian a little closer. “No one really understands it, do they?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long one, but I wanted to go ahead and get us to the party this chapter!
> 
> Endless gratitude and love to everyone who has read along, kudosed, and/or commented! Thank you thank you! <3 I hope you continue to enjoy!
> 
> Next up: food and speeches and gifts, and the mixing of Cardassian and human alike.


	4. Rule 312

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive the *extreme* delay in updating. I'm afraid work and then the holidays combined with some health issues have made for precious little time for fanfic (writing OR reading). 
> 
> In case you've forgotten, we're on Cardassia, fifteen years after canon. Garak and Bashir are married with adopted twins, Issi and Issen. Bashir works at the local hospital with one Kelas Parmak, and Garak has taken up a tailor shop again after being barred from service (in part thanks to Parmak's influence). Bashir is turning fifty, and Garak is throwing him a seren'Ora/birthday party. He's invited Bashir's non-Cardassian friends, including friends from the Federation who Bashir hasn't been able to see in twelve years due to tension between the Federation and Cardassia (denied war aide in the form of industrial replicators being the initiating event of said tension). In the previous chapter, Bashir met up with all his guests, including the newly-elected Castellan Natima Lang who is attending with her old "friend" Quark.
> 
> Okay...and now more!

_Chapter Four_: Rule 312

In his sixteen years on Cardassia, Julian had learned to be flexible. He’d known living on Prime would require concessions: Cardassians did almost everything a bit differently, and they extended little patience to off-worlders. It had taken Julian some years to learn, for example, how to read an awkward pause: had his words been merely confusing or downright offensive? Had he offered less than fifteen minutes of conversation before a meal? Had he switched the topic while speaking with an elder? Or was it his gesture? It didn’t take much more than a tilt of the head to go from emphatic to aggressive—even less to go from aggressive to wantonly flirtatious.

Cardassian cuisine, however, was one area that had posed little challenge in the way of assimilation. Partly, this was due to the lack in those early years. Most of the time, Julian had simply been grateful to have something. Pickiness had become a strange luxury of his former life.

But the greater part of it was due to the fact that Cardassian food was—though he would _never_ admit it to Elim—just a bit tastier. Occasionally, he got a hankering for little things. Like clotted cream. Or dark chocolate. Or cheese. Cardassians didn’t have anything that approached the flavor of good old-fashioned Earth cheese. By and large, though, an all-Cardassian menu was a real treat, and he rarely even thought about raktajinos anymore.

So he was more than happy to see the traditional _seren’Ora_ mainstays on offer: smooth _ossmat_ and sweet green _ts’santa_ and a _zoval_ steak tender enough to be cut through by no more than a sharp look. He wasn’t surprised that whomever Elim hired to cater had produced entirely picture-perfect classics.

He _was_ surprised, however, at the other dishes Elim had ordered, which Elim described for their Cardassian guests as _ghis’nasset_—human-tongued.

“Is that a _cheeseburger_?” Kirayoshi had grabbed hungrily and dug into the dish with fervor.

It _was_ a cheeseburger—or as close to a cheeseburger as a Cardassian chef could come. The meat was _zabo_ and the buns the bubbly _van_ Julian mentally catalogued as ‘Cardassian soda bread.’ The cheese was…not cheese. But it tasted good, whatever it was.

There had been eelfish and chips, though the chips were the unsettlingly vibrant red of the _bet’to_ root from which they were made. There was also what Elim translated for their guests as _jak’naron kat vaal bham’rit s’set_—the meal of the ones who watch small animals in the field. It had taken Julian a moment to realize this was an attempt at shepherd’s pie, and, despite the cumbersome translation, the Cardassian interpretation was a total triumph. Julian hadn’t missed Miles going back for a second and then a third helping.

The Cardassian attempt at Julian’s favorite carrot cake, however, had not been as successful, at least, not as far as the Cardassian guests were concerned. There were politely-covered plates, and, while the castellan gave it her most diplomatic effort, even she couldn’t finish, protesting that the stays of her _pas’set_ simply wouldn’t allow it. Elim, however, was more than willing to inform the Federation guests that, by Cardassian standards, such a dish was far too sweet. When Miles pointed out that Elim had eaten all of his, Elim merely smiled and remarked that he had “long ago learned to appreciate the sweet taste of humans.”

The entire _seren’Ora_, like the meal, had clearly been planned to alternate the Cardassian and the human alike. After the meal, Cardassian guests gave the typical _erbit’sa_—testaments to Julian’s acts of communal goodwill and sacrifice. Doctor Ossun spoke about the new procedures Julian had introduced at the hospital, spending particular time on the screening of all patients for mental health issues. A small boy was led up to the dais to attest that Julian had the warmest and steadiest hands of any doctor at the hospital, and that Julian’s stitching of a facial wound had healed without the feared scar, which earned amused grins all around. A woman Julian didn’t immediately recognize but who was apparently some sort of local bureaucrat spoke of Julian’s role in obtaining extra rations for her son with Taks’sun’s Syndrome during the third year after the Fire. At this, Julian remembered her and her son all too clearly. Those “extra rations,” in fact, had been his own rations, though he’d known better than to say so. Elim had ranted about it when he found out, but Julian had done it anyway and had kept on doing it for two cycles. There’d been no other choice: the boy had been near death, and with Taks’suns, it was unimaginably painful. It had worked. The boy had recovered, and now, his mother proclaimed, he had just been accepted at one of Prime’s more prestigious universities, where he hoped to do research into improving the yield of the Growth colonies on the northern continent. Julian took a moment to appreciate the fullness of his belly and, when the mother gave him a deep bow, the embarrassed smile he gave returned betrayed a fullness of heart, too.

Even the Castellan herself gave a short speech—the sort that had clearly been bullet-pointed by a subordinate but which Lang delivered with genuine aplomb.

That Kelas was asked to speak last—after even the castellan—was a generous honor on Elim’s part, Julian thought. To give the final _erbit’sa_ bespoke a pride of place Julian felt entirely earned.

Kelas began by recalling the first time he and Julian had met.

Julian sighed. Thinking back on such long-gone memories had the same uncanny feel of staring at a photo of your younger self: the face was your own, but a different self stared out from the eyes. A self that felt almost foreign to him now.

It had been only Julian’s third day on Prime, and he’d been pulling his second shift at the triage after a full day with Elim’s digging detail. He’d been exhausted and starving and his lungs had burned with dust. That was the thing about being an Augment, though. He ran better on exhaustion than many did at full strength.

He’d been helping a little girl—Ghiyat, was her name, that he remembered. The _ghiyat_ was a flower wiped out by the Fire. Delicate and vibrant pink, he’d seen it only in holos and illustrations in the days since. A bittersweet memory, just like this one.

Ghiyat’s arm had been slashed open by falling debris and the bleeding had been more than worrying. He’d managed to make a halfway decent tourniquet from the torn bottom of a tent and a precious length of gauze, and he’d done his best to suture while she wept and screamed and shook. He’d tried to distract her, murmuring in broken Kardasi about whatever came to mind. The weather. Tennis. His favorite stories. The time he’d broken his arm as a boy trying to climb too unforgiving a tree.

And, through the entirety of the procedure, the girl’s mother had snarled, apoplectic, demanding a Cardassian doctor, hurling a number of slurs Julian hadn’t understood at the time but which his perfect memory returned to him now, translated in all their painful venom.

“I admit,” Parmak narrated the story from the other side. “When I heard we’d been assigned a Federation human, I wasn’t happy myself. I might have thought, even, a few of the same things as that mother did, though, in less colorful terms, certainly. How could a human _truly_ care for Cardassia? How could any _federaji_ understand? Be depended upon? How could someone so alien possibly sacrifice in the way Cardassia so desperately needed?”

Julian’s heart turned. He’d be a liar if he didn’t admit that he, too, had wondered the same in those early days. Cardassians had a capacity to sacrifice for the good of the community that had astounded him. He’d seen parents wither and die to feed their children. Countless, nameless Cardassians worked themselves to exhaustion in an attempt to find and bury bodies. More worked themselves to death in the attempt to clear a field for planting or to scavenge for any usable items in dangerous ruins. At night, those in the camps had regularly come together to share food and stories and words of comfort with those who had lost loved ones.

Julian certainly found plenty of Cardassian values unappealing: some even abhorrent. But _that_ was the brightest part of Cardassia, that devotion to the health of the whole, and looking back, he was almost certain it was what made the difference between extinction and rebirth.

“But I watched this human doctor—this Starfleet doctor—work. I listened to him whisper to a scared girl while he sutured more efficiently than any other doctor in that triage, even after two days without rest. And I knew then and there that I’d been wrong. This man would be a gift to Cardassia, and I told him as much afterwards. He might not be Cardassian, but he was precisely what we needed.”

There was a polite scatter of _krek_, but Kelas held up a hand to silence it. “No, no. Because, you see, I was wrong about that too.”

He rode the pause just long enough for Julian to meet his eyes and for the quiet to stretch just to breaking.

“Doctor Julian Bashir _is_ Cardassian, through and through. He is the finest example of a Cardassian, as these stories tonight attest—as everything Doctor Bashir has done has attested. Julian Bashir is a Cardassian, and I will challenge anyone who would argue otherwise.”

But no one argued. Around the table, Julian saw only vigorous nods and enthusiastic _krek_. The Federation guests nodded along and imitated the Cardassians knocking on the table, though Julian knew they couldn’t possibly understand what it meant for Kelas to say that. What it meant for so many Cardassians, including—guls and gettle—including the Castellan _herself_ to agree.

To agree that a human could be as Cardassian as they.

When he looked at Elim’s face, he thought his husband had never looked prouder.

It wasn’t what he’d imagined would bring him joy at fifty. He’d envisioned grander accomplishments—tenure at Starfleet Medical. A treatment named after him. A Carrington, maybe.

_Youth is blind in one eye_, Elim was fond of quoting when their children did some silly thing.

Julian saw better now, at least—though, admittedly through a haze of tears.

Elim wiped at his cheek gently. “Come, my dear. None of that human sentimentality. Save that for the gifts.”

And so they pivoted to the human again, and, Julian was surprised to see that Elim had chosen, in human fashion, to present him with a gift.

Julian tried not to look too deflated when handed a datarod trussed up in a neat if garish bow.

“Let me guess. A novel?”

“Not quite.” Elim said, presenting a second package.

Inside Julian found two intricately sewn outfits, though Julian had never seen anything like them before. The solid silver fabric shimmered like snake-skin in the bright pavilion lights. When he held one up, there were impressed whispers from the Cardassians all around.

In the box beneath the cloth were two blunted but still rather wicked-looking curved blades.

“Elim…I…I’m afraid I have no idea what this is.”

Which, of course, Elim was enjoying a bit too much. “They’re costumes, my dear. To go with the holoprogram, of course.”

Surprisingly, it was Quark who came to Julian’s aid. “The costumes are _dhen vardee.”_

There were surprised and slightly impressed looks from the Cardassians all around.

The Ferengi shrugged off the looks. “We used to see them a lot back in the Terok Nor days. They’re costumes from some old Cardassian story or something. Popular holoprogram.”

“They’re the uniforms worn by the famed _Vardee_,” Elim corrected, waspish. “The greatest warriors of early Cardassian history. And the program is the Battle of the Black Dunes.”

Julian had heard of that one. There was a famous Kardasi epic written on the subject, from which the twins had been required to memorize long passages. It had been a cracking yarn, Julian had thought, but despite Elim having bought him a copy of the epic in full, Julian had never gotten around to reading it.

“Since you weren’t amenable to reading, I thought the re-enactment might be more to your taste.”

Julian beamed. A battle in the holosuite. Elim had flat refused the idea of further holosuite adventures after their too-eventful foray on Deep Space Nine, and that kind of luxury hadn’t been widely available on Cardassia for quite some time. In the last year or so, however, a few recreation centers in the posher spots around Coranum operated holosuites, and Julian had been itching to visit.

“Elim…thank you. I know holosuites aren’t your taste, but—”

“Oh, it’s not for me.” He held up the other _dhen vardee, _and Julian could see now: it wasn’t quite the right size. “It’s for you and Mister O’Brien, dear. I’ve already reserved the holosuite time for tomorrow. You can battle until your heart’s content. And I, as the final part of the gift, will not complain.”

Elim wasn’t the only one who gifted Julian with a holoprogram. Jake’s came in the slick printed jacket of the published holonovel, embossed with golden print proclaiming it the number six bestseller in the Federation and a nominee for the prestigious Barclay Prize for Holofiction. It wasn’t until Julian read the title that he understood. _The Heroes of Ajilon_. Jake had given an embarrassed shrug. “You might recognize the doctor character.”

Keiko presented him with a beautiful English rose. Planting in Cardassian soil was a _seren’Ora_ tradition, she’d remembered, and it seemed right that Julian should add something of his home country to their garden. Elim assured Keiko that he would oversee the planting and that Julian would then be kept at least three meters away at all times after. Julian could hardly object given his lackluster history with Elim’s plants, though he’d have thought his husband might stop telling that damn story about the _kis’sa_ by now.

Kira and Miles’s gift had to be wheeled to the dais, but Elim insisted it be presented with the requisite drama.

It was worth it. When Miles drew away the large dustcloth, Julian burst into laughter.

It was the Alamo model, perfectly-arrayed, tiny soldiers poised precisely as they had been fifteen years before. It had, apparently, been languishing in storage on the station for some time.

There was a pregnant pause. It stretched for an awkward time before Kelas ventured in. “Forgive me, I’m quite ignorant of human customs. What is the significance of an _Ah-la-mo_?”

As Miles did his best to explain, the Cardassian guests circled the model, examining each feature and nodding enthusiastically at each new part of the tale of the mission. More than one guest remarked on the admirable detail incorporated, and Kelas mused that perhaps a recreation of the Battle of Black Dunes in such a form would be a fitting display for the Museum of the Cardassian People.

Issen sidled up beside and leaned close until he was face to face with a small group of soldiers on horseback, sabers drawn. He blinked at them and touched the minute sword points with a ginger claw.

“That’s Santa Anna, there.” Kirayoshi, who was standing close, leaned down, too. “He’s…you know…the attacking general, er, gul, I guess you could say.”

Issen nodded, entranced.

“Here, come look at this one.”

The two boys circled to examine the other side of the model, Kirayoshi describing something with exaggerated expressions and a gesture that was obviously something exploding.

Julian and Elim exchanged a look. Elim’s eyes were unusually gentle at the unspoken question. “Yes, we can keep it.”

Julian smiled. Oh, Elim _was_ in a giving mood tonight. “Surrender, Elim? I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Oh, do be careful, _p’rimit_,” he purred, snaking an arm around while they watched their son fondly. “I live to fight another day.”

Wrapped in the warmth of his husband’s embrace and the excited exchange of his and Miles’s sons, Julian had been in no way prepared for the first voluminous note of Worf breaking into song. Nor, judging from the jumps and nervous laughter all around, had any of the other guests.

Somewhere in the bustle, Worf and Martok had produced a decidedly Klingon concertina and were set up on the dais, ready to perform.

For all he’d studied the musics of various cultures, Julian had never found much to love about Klingon music. Jadzia had tried to encourage an appreciation, but he’d always found it on the plodding, melodramatic side, not helped, Jadzia insisted, by the often-clunky Standard translations.

And so Julian pasted on a polite smile, hoping whatever birthday song the Klingons had chosen would be quick and relatively painless. The looks on the faces of most of their Cardassian guests seemed to say much the same.

However, after several boomed lines about honor and battle and the price of victory (most Klingon songs, Julian had noticed, seemed to warm up in this vein), the two men hit the refrain with gusto.

_Hark, Khaless, hear our cry_

_How soldier, leader, healer, spy_

_Through perils great and in numbers small_

_Through bold escape proved warriors all_

Julian’s heart stirred in recognition.

He wilted into a chair, slightly dazed, letting Worf’s voice and the surprisingly delicate notes of Martok’s concertina take him back.

They’d done it: they’d actually found someone to write the song.

It had been years since he’d thought of 371, but there’d been a time when he’d woken most nights thinking of it—woken to darkness and the scrape of silence, tight-chested, short of breath. Woken expecting the that Vorta. Expecting Tain to be lying, wheezing, just beside.

If it hadn’t been for Elim’s warm and reassuring body in bed with him, those sleepless nights might have pulled him under.

“Funny,” Elim whispered as he slid into the chair beside. “I don’t recall your eyes being ‘filled with the spirit of Karq’os the Merciful’.”

Julian barely stifled the laugh. Guls and gettle, his husband did know just when to tease. The heaviness in his chest lightened. “Well, I don’t remember you ‘moving like a shadow on water’, either.”

“Oh, your mistake, my dear. I most certainly did.”

Elim took his hand. Something in the touch told him Elim felt the same memory. Their own version of that time—their own song.

_For though fear lives in every heart_

_And threatens souls to split apart_

_Our heroes proved that stronger still_

_Is a warrior’s spirit and iron will_

So stirring was the song that several Cardassian children joined in with their _bari-bari_s at each refrain. Worf frowned, but Chancellor Martok motioned for them to join him on the dais where they finished off the song together.

At the sound of the last note, the _krek _and applause put the din of even the _bari-bari_s to shame.

“Admiral Dax assures me it’s better in the original Klingon,” Elim whispered, gesturing to Ezri who was shaking the Chancellor’s hand on her way up to the dais. When she caught Julian’s eye, she grinned and there was so much of Jadzia in the look that Julian’s heart gave a leap that confused pain and joy.

He missed Jadzia. She would have loved that song.

Ezri, it turned out, was not bestowing a gift but inserting a vidrod into the lectern. The front of the pavilion flashed bright blue and brown and white as the holoprojector flickered to life. It took Julian a moment to recognize the face that stared back.

“Mmmm…are we, mmm…are we recording? Oh…yes. Hello.”

At Rom’s toothy smile, Julian was given to wonder yet again if Ferengi simply didn’t age until they hit a hundred. The only difference from the man Julian had met twenty years before was the familiar, gold-headed Negus staff and an air of authority that looked entirely comfortable on him.

“Hello, Doctor Bashir and all your honored guests. Greetings from Ferenginar, from, mmm, from myself and my wife.” The still-breathtaking face of Leeta peeked momentarily into the frame and blew a kiss in their direction. “We’re sorry we couldn’t mmm…join you today, but we wanted to extend our congratulations to you and-and Garak and to recognize all the—” He paused and squinted at something off-screen. “All the _itsak…_no…_itak…_no…” He shook his head and moved on. “Everything you’ve done for Cardassia. And not just, mmm, not just Cardassia. No, I think”—from somewhere out of frame Leeta’s voice shouted _And I agree!_— “I think you have influenced everyone around you to strive to be more generous, more equitable, and, mmm, kinder people.”

Julian smiled. The Ferengi had hit a stride and was beginning to speak more fluently, more eloquently. Neguship agreed with him.

“I, mmm, I include myself in that. You’ve set a fine example, and, as Rule Three-hundred and Twelve states: ‘ You may measure latinum in bars, but the value of a good man is measureless.’”

Hmm. That was odd. During a particularly tedious shuttle flight in his cadet years, Julian had memorized all the extant Rules of Acquisition: you never knew when a thing like that might come in handy. At his best recollection—which was quite good—there were only three hundred rules. And certainly none of them sounded like this.

Julian shot a questioning look at Quark.

Quark rolled his eyes and mouthed the reply: _He’s made up a few new ones._

Julian looked back at the projected face of the Negus with new respect.

“Even so, I’m, mmm, I’m going to try to measure the value. In the grand, mmm, _young_ tradition on Ferenginar that we call _Charity_, I wish to donate twenty-five kilograms of gold-pressed latinum to the Union Assembly of Card—“ Another glance of-screen. He practiced the word silently before turning back to the camera. “Cardassi’or.”

A rumble of surprise rolled among the guests. Julian was sure he’d heard Kelas draw in a particularly sharp breath. Twenty-five kilgorams of latinum was more currency than any single donor had given into Cardassi’or’s hands in more than a decade.

Across the room, Quark looked as if he’d just had a limb removed.

“It is my hope that this _charitable donation_”—the Negus said these words with scrupulous care—“will stand as a testament to our support of all Doctor Bashir has accomplished and our commitment to ensuring that such efforts are not in vain.” A nod and a tap of that peculiar, gold-topped staff. “And moreover, mmmm, we hope, Doctor Bashir, that you have a very Happy Birthday.”

_Happy Birthday, Julian! _Came from off-screen just before the recording cut to black.

There was a long moment of quiet.

Julian didn’t know what to say.

“I—well, not to…not to be indelicate, but…” Kelas, though obviously dazed, managed to work up to the question. “How…how many bars of latinum would that be, twenty-five kilograms?”

“I—I don’t know. About—” Julian squinted, trying to do the conversion.

“The Negus has earmarked five hundred bars that he suggests are for medical use in Julian’s honor,” Ezri said, removing the vidrod and offering Castellan Lang a tight smile. “A further one-thousand two hundred and fifty bars are sent for discretionary use. It’s all waiting in a Ferengi trust on Kora II for the castellan’s approval and release, should she care to receive it.”

Kelas turned to look at the castellan. His mouth opened but apparently words failed him. 

“I…I’ll be sure it’s approved immediately,” she said, looking equally amazed. “And…and thank you, Doctor Bashir. Cardassi’or owes you…tremendously.”

Julian was still staring at the empty space where Rom’s face had been. More than seventeen-hundred bars of latinum. It was hard to even imagine.

Before he’d come to Cardassia, Julian hadn’t appreciated the reality of money. He’d made and reclaimed and thrown out and used without thought for all his young life. Latinum had been a quirk of fictions of the frontier. But here, there was a weight to want. To the things he used. They were resources, far from infinite. Money meant something.

And the kind of money Rom had sent was akin to the ancient Earth stories of bread falling from heaven. They could finally get the hospitals in the rural districts up to snuff. They could upgrade the cheaper housing in the poorest parts of Torr. They could stop hoping for easy _chom’nu_ seasons and run vaccination programs for all citizens, not merely the highest risk. They could undertake more serious decon projects. Maybe even fund some of his less high-priority ideas like mental health training for medical staff.

It took him a moment to feel the weight of the castellan’s gaze on him. And a nudge from Elim.

“Oh, well, it’s…it’s not me you should thank. It’s Rom. Er, I mean, Grand Negus Rom.”

The castellan nodded. She seemed to be struggling to wrap her head around it as much as he was. “And of course, I’ll send a personal message of my gratitude to the Negus as well. It’s…amazingly generous.”

“Yes, yes,” Quark grumbled, standing from his seat beside the castellan. “_Generous. _My _generous_ brother, Blessed Exechequer forgive him.” He gave his _mijast_ a sullen tug. “Well, I’m afraid I won’t be offering any _charitable donations_.” A little shudder, poorly concealed. “But, I would like to present Doctor Bashir—”

Julian noticed it in the castellan’s eyes first. Though controlled and professional, he caught the flash.

Fear.

A second later came the shuffle of boots. The soft draw of disruptors.

Elim was on his feet before any of it registered. Julian recognized the tense grace of the stance: it was a stance Julian hadn’t seen him take in years. A stance he had been glad to see the other side of, frankly.

But, given the circumstances, Julian could hardly blame him.

Two officers in Starfleet uniforms had entered, and the castellan’s _vhas’sak _had blocked their paths, disruptors at the ready.

“Castellan, please.” It was Ezri who stepped forward, hand raised gently. “Don’t be alarmed. They’re part of my escort, and they’re unarmed.”

The castellan’s eyes, sharp with some of Elim’s harsh worry, searched Ezri’s face. Julian couldn’t have guessed what she was looking for, but she was looking for it with intensity.

The Ezri Julian had known on Deep Space Nine—the Ezri who had barely been Ezri _Dax_—might have flinched at such unrelenting, close scrutiny from a woman like the castellan. She would have fidgeted, shifted. Made a long and winding speech.

This Ezri did not. She looked back, eyes apologetic but determined.

“I assure you, it’s part of Julian’s birthday. No one is armed; you can search them.”

Only the sound of night-locusts in the _ithian_ trees sounded for what seemed a very long moment.

Whatever the castellan found in Ezri’s face, it was enough. She gave the _vhas’sak_ a nod. “You can stand down. For now.”

The moment the _vhas’sak_ stepped back, the Starfleet officers parted, too.

Julian would have thought that, after so many surprises, he might not have enough shock left.

He would have been wrong.

“Yes, gentlemen. Please do stand down.”

Gold gown rustling and jeweled earrings flashing, Lwaxana Troi swept into the pavilion. Her hair was an eye-watering shade of orange. At her wrists, bracelets tinkled grandly. “You’re stepping on my dramatic entrance.”

All was silent save for the soft sound of Elim Garak cursing under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that the chapter count has increased to six. I can promise nothing other than I *will* finish this (I mean, I have finished it, but it is in cursed first-draft form). It may be slow, but we're going to get there.
> 
> Thank you to anyone who is still with me! Kudos and comments keep my head in the game!
> 
> Next chapter, well, Lwaxana will be Lwaxana.


	5. And Many More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since it's been too, too long, a quick recap:
> 
> We're on Cardassia, fifteen years after canon. Garak and Bashir are married with adopted twins, Issi and Issen. Bashir works at the local hospital with one Kelas Parmak, and Garak has taken up a tailor shop again after being barred from service (thanks to Parmak's influence). Bashir is turning fifty, and Garak is throwing him a seren'Ora/birthday party. He's invited Bashir's non-Cardassian friends, including friends from the Federation who Bashir hasn't been able to see in twelve years due to tension between the Federation and Cardassia (denied war aide in the form of industrial replicators being the initiating event of said tension). Surprises have included: the attendance of the newly-elected Castellan Natima Lang (on the arm of her old "friend" Quark), a large charitable donation to Cardassi'or from Grand Negus Rom, and the thus-far unexplained dramatic entrance of one Lwaxana Troi (who is, among other things, the newly-elected President of the Federation).

_Chapter Five: And Many More_

In his youth, Julian’s had held a dim view of diplomats. They had their place with peace treaties and first contact, of course, but in general, the entire diplomatic undertaking lacked _flavor_. It was forced smiles and chit-chat and talking _around_. It was dinners and conferences and sitting at long, heavy tables for hours on end. Diplomacy was the opposite of the adventure he’d craved: it was the stuff of white-haired admirals and of fawning officers who found no better way to rise through the ranks.

This opinion, like so many from his youth, had turned out to be absolute bollocks.

Diplomats, the intervening years had taught, were often the bravest and most self-possessed individuals in service. They had to chit-chat, that was true, but they also had to learn when to speak to the point—how and when to _not blink. _Even as they faced the oncoming horde.

Or, in this case, even as they faced a pavilion of affronted Cardassians and tried to convince them that this new development was, in fact, not a terribly rude contravention of their laws.

Tonight, at fifty, Julian thanked the stars of the Federation for diplomats.

“Castellan Lang, please allow me a moment. I can explain.” Ezri’s voice was pitch-perfect: confident without sounding arrogant, the way they taught in medical school. She was pulling it off better than he ever had, in fact. “This isn’t…well, it’s like _you_ said. This isn’t a visit of state. It’s a personal call.”

The castellan gave no signs of encouragement.

“President Troi, like yourself, doesn’t want any fuss,” Ezri continued anyway. “And she certainly doesn’t intend any offense or provocation.”

_No, _Julian amended silently._ Thank the Stars of the Federation for Ezri Dax_.

“Yes, yes, Miss Dax here is _absolutely_ right,” President Troi took up with flare, but, even for that, no less delicacy. “And I must say, Castellan, that I’m delighted to meet you here, finally, as just another partygoer.” When she bowed, the pavilion lights shattered and reformed around the jewels at her neck. “Lwaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, and Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. Oh, and, uh, President of the United Federation of Planets. Got to remember that one.”

“An…unexpected pleasure, Madame President.” The castellan managed something close to sincerity, though Julian didn’t miss the cut of her eyes toward the _vhas’sak_. Someone, he felt sure, would be getting many very thorough questions about how a head of state could sneak through so many layers of Cardassian security without detection.

“Ahh, the unexpected pleasures are so often the best.” Her laughter bubbled and burst, thoroughly out of place and far too loud. “And please, _do_ call me Lwaxana. Let’s leave the titles to the news services.”

Julian cringed. This might have sounded winning on Betazed or Earth, but Cardassians hung a great deal of importance on titles. Requesting to be called by a first name in this situation was…well, almost as shocking as the President’s hair color. 

“Because this is a personal event,” Ezri inserted quickly. “President Troi is requesting a lack of formality. As I said, her business here is personal. With Doctor Bashir.”

And suddenly, as sixty pairs of eyes turned on him, Julian felt as if _he_ were the one facing the oncoming horde.

His mouth felt dry.

“Doctor Bashir.” The castellan’s tone was undeniably pointed. “You’re… _acquainted_ with the President of the Federation?”

He could only imagine all the CIB officers who must be feverishly adding this fact to his file. “I—I am, Castellan. We met on Deep Space Nine. During my time there. She was the Betazoid ambassador.”

“Julian and I spent many dull hours at diplomatic functions, didn’t we?” the President confirmed before bundling him into an enthusiastic embrace. “It’s always a balm to attend those things with a dashing young man on your arm, as I’m sure you’d…” Her eyes met Quark and the thought petered. “Er, yes, well. And…things haven’t changed a bit, have they Doctor!” She stepped smoothly over the moment and held him out at arm’s length, appraising. “Still as handsome as ever. Maybe more so, with the beard. Age suits you. Wouldn’t you agree, Mister Garak?”

Elim Garak had very few tells. Twenty years ago, Julian might have said he had none, but experience had taught him to read the little signs.

The most reliable he’d learned was this: when Elim was his most anxious, he was also at his most effusive.

There was a creaking hint of the effusion now. “Oh, I couldn’t agree more, Madame President. I, too, believe in having a dashing young man on my arm at such things.” He slid his arm through Julian’s and bowed a little more deeply than necessary.

Julian’s cheeks burned. This was no longer the light-hearted celebration he’d been enjoying. It had sprung a leak, fun and ease draining out, the whole affair sinking, and all Julian felt now was the thorough desire to find a hole and crawl into it.

A fact President Troi must have sensed this, as she straightened and assumed a more diplomatic air. Far more diplomatic, he had to admit, than he’d thought her capable of. “As much, however, as I wish our dear Doctor Bashir well on his birthday, I’m afraid I’ve actually come in place of an invited guest who, regretfully, was not permitted to attend.”

It took only a few beats of thick, uneasy silence for Julian to understand.

_Odo._

Elim cleared his throat. “Odo’s visa was the only that was…disallowed. Respectfully.” He gave the castellan a look of acknowledgment. “And understandably, of course.”

Castellan Lang returned the look but said nothing. She didn’t have to. Julian understood. The wounds were still too deep. Lang _might_ tolerate the President of the Federation—for a few, public minutes at least—but allowing a Founder to set foot on Cardassia…it wouldn’t happen again in Julian’s lifetime, he was sure.

Julian knew better, of course. He knew that, if not for Odo, what little that had remained of Cardassia would have been obliviated, every last Cardassian killed. But that sort of nuance got lost in the pain of recovery.

“He’ll be grateful to know you think so, Doctor,” President Troi whispered before saying more loudly, “Of course, and Odo understands as well. But he _did_ want to send you a gift and asked if I might consider delivering it myself. If…of course the castellan doesn’t object?”

There was a short, whispered conversation between one of the _vhas’sak_ and the castellan followed by a longer span of time in which the gift was taken from President Troi and scanned. Then scanned again. And again with a more sensitive scanner. And then taken out of the pavilion and subjected to guls only knew what else.

During the process, President Troi merely smiled and made a comment on the dryness of the heat that Elim picked up enthusiastically. They batted it around between them with exaggerated lightness. This led to a discussion of the materials of Cardassian _pas’sets_ and the President insisting that she should order one from his shop. Really, it was impressive, when he thought about it, how the two of them could talk about absolutely nothing and still be entirely entertaining, never allowing a moment of tension to surface.

When the _vhas’sak_ returned, he handed the package to the castellan rather than President Troi. “It’s a vidrod. Nothing objectionable.”

The castellan turned the box in her hands for a moment before she sighed and held it out to Julian. “Well, I did say we owed you, Doctor.” Under the circumstances, her smile was surprisingly kind. “Sorry to ruin the surprise.”

Julian tried to convey his own apology in his smile as Elim went to insert the vidrod. “Sorry _about_ the surprise.”

When Odo’s face flickered into focus across the holoscreen, Julian first thought he looked precisely the same. He still wore the familiar (though now quite out-of-date) militia uniform, and his features were unaffected by the wrinkles and sagging and discoloration that had transformed most around the table.But as he looked closer, Julian realized the changeling’s face _had_…well, changed. Each inch was etched in slightly more detail, resolved into something just a bit more humanoid. The nose sloped and turned down. The fossa and helices of the ear were defined, looping instead of smooth. Something like lips even bracketed his mouth.

And perhaps most surprising of all, on those lips…a smile.

Clearly the years in the Link had improved both his shapeshifting abilities and his mood.

“Hello, Doctor Bashir.” The voice hadn’t changed a bit, though. It scraped good-naturedly. “I’m sorry I can’t attend your _seren’Ora_, Doctor. And I’m sorry I can’t be there to catch up with you and with Garak and …everyone else.” There was a pause, and Julian had no doubt the shape that filled it. He glanced as unobtrusively as possible in Nerys’s direction. She was smiling, too, even if, at the corners, it was heavy. “I understand, of course, that there’s history in the way now, but I hope Lwaxana is allowed to deliver this because there’s something I’ve been wanting to show you for some time, Doctor.” He motioned to someone off-screen.

A young man leaned into the frame, heavy-footed and making only occasional eye contact with the camera. He was thoroughly unremarkable: short and thin, with murky brown hair and a human-like face that would have been at home on a hundred worlds. Still, despite that, there was _something _familiar about him. Something kind around the eyes, maybe…

“Hi, um, well, I mean, it’s nice to have the opportunity to speak to you, Doctor Bashir. It’s… an honor, really.” The words skipped and started, but there was feeling in them. “Everyone’s told me about you and my, my mom, and everything you did for her. And, well, I mean, for us. All of us who’re here now.”

It wasn’t until the young man smiled, warm and entirely genuine, that the eyes found a match.

Teplan. He was on Teplan. “Oh my God. That’s—”

“I’m Ekoria’s son, Rivan, by the way,” he finished with an awkward half-laugh. “The Found—um, _Odo_—has told me a lot of stories about you, too. And, they’re, yeah, they’re pretty much what everyone says here. That you’re…you’re compassionate and, and tenacious and that, well…without you…well, I mean none of _this_ would’ve happened.”

At ‘this’ the young man had swung his arm outward, and the holocamera followed. The flat, faded face of a mural brushed past first: Julian recognized it as the work of Ekoria’s husband. Teplan before the Blight, she’d said. Before the Jem’hadar and the Founders had doomed their world. Though sun had leeched its color, the beauty it depicted remained in the brown silhouettes of high towers topped by sturdy domes.

But the camera didn’t linger, continuing on to the town beyond. As light reassembled in the lens, Julian’s breath went out of him. Gone were the broken homes and the dusty, listless rhythm of their inhabitants. Gone were the toppled towers and the temporary props on every facet of life. Though a few of the buildings still had a lean-to look, they also had a rooted feel, walls washed and small gardens planted, dotted with the hopeful color of flowers. Children played on stone-paved streets. Everyone who passed looked young, like Rivan, but they looked healthy, too, and smooth-faced.

And, like Odo, they smiled.

In the farther distance, the split dome of a building was almost entirely healed over in plaster. Not the beauty of the mural, not yet. But this beauty, at least, was unfaded. New.

Teplan was healing.

The camera pulled back farther to reveal a simple statue circled by yellow-gold grass. The figure depicted held up a baby, and, by chance of camera angle, the soft Teplan sun outlined the baby in red light. The words on the plinth were in a foreign script, but Julian didn’t need to read them. The materials might be humble, but the care taken with them was not. There was no mistaking the subject.

“A handsome figure indeed,” Elim said, _sotto voce_.

Julian managed only a strangled chuckle.

“The Found—Odo says you might not like seeing the—the statue. But it’s…you’re more than a statue here, Doctor Bashir. You gave everything back to us. We…well…let me…” The young man disappeared from frame for a moment, only to return hand-in-hand with a young woman. She blushed and looked away and touched her midsection in that unmistakable gesture of protection. Rivan did the same, resting a gentle hand on her slightly swollen belly with a look of love that touched something deep inside Julian. He couldn’t name it or describe it, but it was something made from the soft down of joy.

It was Odo who spoke, though the camera lingered on the couple. “We’ve been visiting places like these, Doctor. All the worlds infected with the Blight. We’ve been trying to help them—trying to rescue what little is left. Most worlds are either long dead or still struggling to survive. Teplan is the only one growing: reopening schools and rebuilding temples and starting families. And the difference on this world was _you_, Doctor. The people here have hope, and that is _your_ legacy.” The camera found its way back to Odo, whose smile was etched even more deeply. “There’s not a person standing on this planet now who does not owe their life to you and your compassion, Doctor Bashir. Myself included. And if there’s one gift I could give you for your fifth _dassek_, it’s the knowledge that you have made, for so many, an _enormous_ difference. You have made our lives possible.” A nod. “Happy Birthday, Doctor Bashir.”

When the holo flickered out, Julian didn’t try to stop the tears.

There weren’t many things in his life that Julian truly counted as regrets. He’d been lucky that way. Almost everything that had happened, even the bad things, had brought some good eventually.

Not finding a cure was one of those few regrets. After Cardassia, he’d moved on: he’d had Cardassia to heal then, after all. Now and again, though, he’d think of Teplan. Would pull out the padd, even. Run over the data a few more times. He had hoped the Founders, under Odo’s influence, would have cured the afflicted, if any were left. But he couldn’t help feeling it was a loose end. That he had let the people of Teplan down.

Elim’s hand on his back steadied him as Ezri and Miles explained to the other attendees.

“An astounding act of _itask’haran_,” Kelas said when they’d finished, and, around him every Cardassian nodded. A few even knocked against the table, looking sobered. Deaths stolen from the Dominion had a special meaning here.

“Indeed it was,” President Troi agreed, settling a gentling hand of her own on Julian’s back. “One I intend to bring to the attention of the Federation Medical Council before the next Carrington nominations are announced.”

He froze, unsure he’d heard her properly.

“That got him. Yes, Doctor. Heroic and groundbreaking actions such as that cannot escape the notice of our scientists merely because the doctor is a few star systems away.” She gave a flippant gesture as if commenting on the weather. “I can’t promise anything other than the Medical Council will hear about it.” A smile. “_Often_. In my own _inimitable_ style.”

“I can’t think of anything more persuasive,” Elim said, standing to offer her a bow. “Thank you, Madam.”

Julian spluttered, trying to catch up with Elim’s example. “Yes…yes, thank you. It…it means the world.” _Thank the Stars of the Federation for all of them._

“Ahh, do consider saving your most effusive gratitude. Our sweet Miss Dax hasn’t yet given you _her_ gift.” The tilting, teasing promise of the President’s tone hit him in the gut.

“There—there’s more?”

Ezri stepped forward and, hands on his shoulders, gave him a steadying nod. “It’s really _our_ gift, Julian.” She reached out and set something gently into his hand. “The President’s and mine. And Jadzia’s. All of us, really.”

The something in his hand was flat and gray, inset with a number of pearlescent blue data chips. It meant nothing to him. “What…I mean…”

“It’s a key.” Elim picked it up to inspect it more closely. “Federation. The kind reserved for official cargo. And it would be for a…” He paused and looked at Ezri with meaning, his blue eyes a fraction wider. “For a sizeable delivery.”

Julian still didn’t understand. “A delivery? Of what?”

Ezri took his hand again. “Julian, you’ve always been the type who likes to give more than receive. So, this…this seemed like the perfect gift.” She handed him a datapadd with what was clearly a cargo manifest. “They’re docked at Kora II. Waiting in one of Kasidy’s cargo ships.”

Julian read the manifest twice. Three times to be sure. It wasn’t a long list. There was only one entry.

He swallowed. He feared the words might dry up in his throat, but in the end, he managed. “Replicators?”

She nodded. “Twenty-five Grade A3 industrial replicators courtesy of the United Federation of Planets. To be gifted to one Doctor Julian Subatoi Bashir.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“To…to me? Why to _me_?”

At this, President Troi stepped up. “It’s the official policy of the United Federation of Planets that high-grade industrial replicators are to be distributed to non-Federation governments on a…select basis. At the moment, Cardassia is not slated to receive them, in line with a rather outdated policy I hope to see amended.” She sighed. “But that kind of change, I’m sorry to say, takes _time_. And I’m not a patient woman, Doctor. But, as Admiral Dax was good enough to point out, there’s no _official_ policy about giving a small number of replicators as gifts of state to Federation citizens...” She made an elaborating gesture.

Julian blinked. A blink was all his brain seemed willing to supply.

“We knew you’d know what to do with them, Julian.” Ezri, beaming, looked meaningfully toward the front of the pavilion where the castellan stood, shaken.

Julian didn’t know what to do. He looked at Elim, searching for some hint of how to proceed. What point of etiquette was called for.

He was surprised to find something almost like tears in his husband’s eyes.

He blinked again. Well, they were still in his eyes, too, it seemed. “I—I mean—well, of course. Of course, I give them into the castellan’s care. For Cardassia. Obviously.” He was more than aware that his lurching half-phrases were hardly the eloquence the moment called for, but it was the best he could muster.

Castellan Lang wasn’t managing much better. “I—thank you, Doctor Bashir. I… can barely think how to express my gratitude tonight. To you, to your Trill friend, and to you, Madam Pres—”

“No, no, my dear Castellan.” When President Troi turned to face her Cardassian counterpart, she was suddenly much _more_. This was the woman the news services referred to as the Savior of Betazed. This was Lwaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, and Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. This was a woman who knew how to lead. “You owe me nothing. This is a pitifully small gesture that I hope will assure you and all of Cardassia that I take your concerns very seriously. And that I hope…well, I hope we’ll meet again many times to discuss those concerns. Betazoid has suffered. Cardassia has suffered. Let us ensure our peoples recover together.” She held up her palm to the Castellan. “And please, do call me Lwaxana. I really prefer it.”

For the first time since the President’s guard had entered the pavilion, Castellan Lang appeared to relax slightl, and something passed between the two women that was lost on no one in the room.

“Lwaxana.” Castellan Lang accepted the gesture, pressing her palm to President Troi’s fully. “Conversation will be, I hope, of great benefit to all involved. I, too, believe it is time for—”

Just as the castellan was ramping up into a proper speech, it was cut in two by the screech of a _barri-barri_.

A mortified parent picked up his toddler and offered a wince of apology.

And just like that, the room relaxed into smiles and nervous laughter, and the leaders of the Cardassia and the Federation let out relieved sighs of their own.

“I’m afraid we—we might have stolen your show a bit, Doctor,” Castellan Lang said through an apologetic chuckle. “I promise, no more speech-making tonight. But I do…” She looked over her shoulder as if in search of something she’d forgotten. “I do think Quark here has one more gift, if you’re still in a mood to celebrate…?”

Quark shuffled forward, looking peeved. “Yeah. Of course it’s my turn after the gift that heals galactic wounds.” He pulled a datarod from his tunic and whirled it sarcastically. “Happy Birthday, Doctor!”

Unlike with the other datarods, the holoscreen did not flicker to life. Instead, the pavilion lights dimmed, and a single spotlight shot down from the rafters above.

A second before the voice, Julian understood.

“I hear there’s a birthday in the house tonight?”

Somewhere in the background, piano music began tinkling from a source unseen. Julian couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh, there he is. The birthday boy.” Vic stepped into the spotlight and gestured to a single chair set beside him. “Come on up here, pally. You’re the man of the hour, and I think you know how this goes.”

Elim helped lead Julian, reluctantly, to the chair at the center of the room, where he sat, looking out at the guests around him. The Cardassian guests, Julian noted, had cards out, and most were studying them closely as they sang the words. The Federation guests all knew the words by heart.

_Happy Birthday to you… Happy Birthday to you…_

Julian looked around the pavilion as the song progressed, trying to take it in. To feel the weight of it. To think and understand what had brought him here, at the age of fifty, to this life. This amazing, wonderful life. He’d left home looking for adventure, and he’d thought he knew what adventure was. Thought it unfolded just so, like the plot of a Bond novel.

But _this_ was adventure. Scrabbling through each day, doing your best, and finding that, after fifty years, you could sit in a room full of those you loved and feel, finally, as if you’d succeeded at a few things, at least.

_And many more…_

His eyes found Elim’s as the song drew to a close. He didn’t know what to say. Certainly didn’t know how to say it or what would truly encompass the warmth that filled every last corner of himself. All he could think to do in that moment was look at his husband and mouth the words. Mouth the words and mean them.

_I love you, p’rimit._

Elim smiled and mouthed back. _As you should._

Julian laughed.

Vic’s hands settled on his shoulders as, somewhere in the background, the holographic band kicked into the next song, jazzy and up-tempo.

“Hey, uh, gifts are great and all but…isn’t there s’pposed to be dancing at these things?”

***********************

If there was one thing tonight had made clear, it was just how much had changed in sixteen years. Everyone’s smiles sank a little deeper in their faces, and the distance between everyone, though fond, had deepened just the same. They’d all found their own ways in the years since, and, in fact, a new generation sat together now. In a quiet corner of the room, Ziam braided Issi’s hair and asked her questions about her schoolwork in soft, motherly Kardasi. Issi answered proudly, all the while playing with sparkling chain of Jini’s gold earring. That child truly did love everything that sparkled—Elim’s daughter certainly.

Julian watched them for a long while, filled with the warm sense that, while time had passed, it had been time well spent. It was a nostalgia that didn’t ache so much as sigh with contentment.

But for all the growth and change, one thing remained very much the same.

Miles O’Brien hated to dance.

“I just don’t see why dancing has to be a part of celebrations in every damn culture,” he insisted, squinting at their moving feet as Julian tried to lead him through a turn.

“Dancing is definitely required here,” Julian said apologetically, making a mental note to slow down. “And Cardassians put a lot of stock in doing it right.”

“ ’Course they do,” he grumbled. “Christ, if you’d told me twenty years ago I’d be standing on Cardassia dancing with you to some—what was this called again?”

“_Yalt’ij_.”

“Right. _Yalt’ij_…If you told me I’d be on Cardassia learning to _yalt’ij _with you, I’d have told you to sod right—ow!” He stumbled, having not moved quickly enough to avoid Julian’s left foot. “Eh!”

The two Cardassian women dancing beside them covered barely stifled laughs.

“Miles, you have to let me lead.”

“Well then bloody well learn to lead!”

As if to put him out of his misery, Keiko insisted on cutting in as soon as the next song struck up, and Issen took Miles’s place, swaying and humming along with genuine enjoyment to the strains of _Fly Me to the Moon_. Vic seemed content to share the stage with the Cardassian quartet, and they traded songs with what seemed mutual, professional regard. Julian was even fairly certain he’d spied the lounge singer tapping his toes along to the _mor’ij, _lightly clicking out the beat.

Worf proved the greatest surprise, however, dancing the upbeat _nar’ij _with even more grace than the Cardassians on the floor. When an amazed Kelas questioned him, Worf merely replied that “dancing and combat share many similarities” before retreating to his bloodwine for the remainder of the night. Miles eventually confided that Worf had taken ballroom dance classes while on-board the _Enterprise D_ and been acclaimed a star student. When Julian pointed out that Miles ought to have considered doing the same, he was answered with a rude gesture that, luckily, meant nothing to the surrounding Cardassians.

“Doctor Bashir?”

Vic and his piano had picked up again with a slow and soulful rendition of _Strangers in the Night_, and, when Julian turned, he was met with the politely smiling face of the Castellan of the Cardassian Union.

“May I have this dance, Doctor?”

He swallowed. Human dancing positioned partners far closer than Cardassian dancing and with a great deal more touching, especially in a slower song like this. He had no idea what the protocol would be.

He felt sure, however, that whatever the protocol, it would be far ruder to decline. “Um…of…of course, Castellan. I—would you prefer--?” He held up his hands palm forward offering the Cardassian stance in compromise.

Much to his relief, she laughed and placed his hand matter-of-factly on her waist. “If you can learn the _yalt’ij_, I think I can manage the human way.”

There was some difficulty negotiating into the music, stepping in fits and apologetic starts, before Julian realized the issue. She was leading.

Well, that was fair, he supposed, and once he acquiesced, in fact, he found her surprisingly good at it. 

Bolstered by a few smooth steps, he ventured a step into conversation, though he was uncertain if it was appropriate for him to lead here, either. “Castellan, I—I appreciate how patient you’ve been with…well, with all of this. I know surprises aren’t the stuff of good politics.”

The look she gave him didn’t argue. “Luckily, most of your surprises seem to have worked to our benefit tonight. If, of course, President Troi can be believed.” The castellan extended her arm indicating that he was to twirl—a move she must have observed from the other dancers. He ducked and turned awkwardly, before she threw him even further off balance with: “_Can_ she be believed, Doctor? You’ve known her for some time, it seems.”

His feet managed a little more eloquently than his brain. “I—what, President Troi? Can she…be believed?”

“There’s been…negative sentiment about her in the new services, and I have to admit I’m not entirely immune. But I’ve also lived long enough to recognize when I might need to…reevaluate my opinions.” The self-deprecating smile she gave made Julian realize just how different she was the than the preening legates he’d met before the war. This Castellan of Cardassia was as new as the planet itself. 

Perhaps there was hope for them all yet. “Castellan, I can definitely say I’ve never known Lwaxana Troi to be anything other than utterly and completely honest. Beyond the expected—or even _desired—_bounds of honesty, in fact.” They exchanged smiles. “But I’d say she’s very sincere in her desire to make amends. I think she’s…she’s a better person than most give her credit for.”

Across the sound of the music, Julian recognized the bright tinkle of his daughter’s laughter. When he turned to look, he caught a glimpse of Elim dipping her with exaggerated drama. Each time her black braids inverted, she let out a hysterical giggle.

Infectious, too, for the castellan herself couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Adorable.”

“That they are.” He wanted nothing more than to join them, but he was fairly sure abandoning the castellan of the Union on the dance floor was a faux pas Elim would never allow him to hear the end of.

“And what about your husband, Doctor Bashir?” The castellan’s pale eyes were uncomfortably keen. “Do you suppose he, like President Troi, is ‘a better person than he gets credit for’?”

Julian’s feet stuttered as if they’d taken an unanticipated turn.

It was a hard question: it had always been. One of the hardest of his life.

He loved Elim. Loved him in a way he wouldn’t have even known possible before they’d started a family. But he also knew there were parts of Elim he’d never seen. Parts of Elim he hoped had turned to dust along with that old Cardassia.

Julian knew there had been victims, and, if he was ever in danger of forgetting, the stutter of Kelas’s hand was an unnverving reminder.

But Julian had also watched Elim live his life for Cardassia. He’d watched Elim dig through ruins until his hands bled on the off-chance he might find someone still breathing. He’d watched Elim read burial hymn for corpse after corpse, each afforded full and thorough rites. He’d watched Elim nurse children through _chom’nu_ and sit for hours helping Issen practice his way through a sentence or two. He’d even watched Elim agree to a plain and simple second exile—an act Julian felt sure caused no small amount of pain—simply because it was what Cardassia needed.

Whether any of that balanced what had come before, Julian didn’t know. He’d long ago learned to stop trying to make his heart and his head agree on the subject.

“I think…it’s complicated,” Julian sighed finally, shaking his head. “He’s a wonderful father and husband and I think…I believe he has a good heart.”

The castellan nodded but said nothing.

The silence was heavy. He could see his words being weighed against others. Kelas’s perhaps, though hardly Kelas’s alone.

And Julian certainly wouldn’t argue. “What do _you_ think, castellan? You met my husband, didn’t you? On DS9?”

Lang considered this with a solemnity Julian hadn’t entirely expected, and he wondered anew exactly what had passed in that brief acquaintance. It had been more than a polite nod exchanged in Quark’s, that was certain.

“I…well, as you say, it’s complicated. I’ve learned since then. But at the time… I must say, he seemed like a bit of a romantic.”

The bark of laughter was undignified, but Julian couldn’t help it. Hearing the Castellan of the Union use that term describe Elim Garak had an irony more delicious, even, than human-tongued carrot cake. “A ‘romantic.’ I’m certainly going to tell him you think so.”

“The way he looks at you, Doctor Bashir, I don’t think I was entirely wrong. _If_ he has a good heart now, I’d say that’s why.” She smiled. “Nothing can soften a heart quite like love.”

Some words, though newly spoken, seem to have always been said—always known in a place outside the shape of words. Giving them form merely allowed you to admire their truth from a different angle.

Julian took a moment to admire these. “It’s a lovely thought, at least. I don’t know if it’s true.”

“I hope it is. It’s what I work for here, on Cardassia, every day. That we will love Cardassia with all ourselves, and that, in time, her heart will change. Like love, it may hurt, and there will be loss. It will take time—“

As if its name had been called, Time raised its head.

Stopped.

Looked back.

In Julian’s stomach, something stretched, and that stretch was all that existed for a long, elastic moment. Sound and motion caught, everything gone still as in a gilded frame.

And in the next breath, light. Light that crashed, a white wave sliding over him, toes to navel to eyes. When he opened his mouth to speak, there were no words. No sounds. Only the cocoon-close beat of his heart.

_Words move in a line_, he thought. And there were no lines here.

Instead, as sound returned, it came from a direction Julian had never known. Not up nor down, left nor right, but some new axis altogether. The quiet shift of footfalls, a whisper and then…

It was the pavilion, just as it had been. Tall pillars and balloons and the Alamo model, Cardassian stars beyond. His dance partner, however, had vanished. Along, it seemed, with the other guests.

But Julian was not alone.

A figure, silhouetted in the last lingering aura of white, stood on the dais.

“Where are—what—“ Words sounded now, but Julian found he didn’t know which to use.

“Don’t worry, Doctor.” As the figure stepped down, a Bajoran earring glinted, gold. “You’re perfectly safe.”

Across from him, Benjamin Sisko smiled. The smile lit his eyes, as bright as the white light had been and then some.

“Happy Birthday, Doctor Bashir.”

Julian could think of nothing better to do than laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, apologies for the five month delay. It's been a bit of a _time,_hasn't it? But the final chapter will be posted next weekend. It's already written and as good as it's going to get: it just needs a double-check for typos, etc.
> 
> Endless gratitude to anyone who is still with me. Kudos and comments are always cherished.


	6. Yet to Come

_Chapter Six: _Yet to Come

In those early years on the station, Julian had struggled to hold Benjamin’s Sisko’s eyes. When they’d first met, in fact, the strong, even appraisal of his commanding officer had nearly bowled Julian over bodily. Eye contact was never easy, but Sisko had proved a special challenge. Everything about him projected strength and equanimity—qualities Julian valued all the more as he lacked them almost entirely.

But for all Sisko’s poise, the man had never felt cold. Even after that first sharp appraisal—four-point-six seconds Julian might have sworn were longer—even then, Sisko had smiled. That air of command remained, but it warmed, spread like indulgent sunlight. An older Julian now realized how rare and lucky a combination that was in a first commanding officer. Those smiles, that warmth: it had been a large part of what made DS9 feel, against all odds, less like the frontier and more like a home. A family.

It was the reason he could hold Sisko’s eyes now.

“Doctor Bashir.” Sisko looked him up and down. “You look …mature. _Fatherly_. It’s…disorienting, to be honest. But good.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “Very good.”

Sisko wasn’t the only one feeling disoriented. “Er…so do you, Captain. Look good, that is.”

“I’m not in Starfleet’s ranks anymore, Doctor. The title’s not strictly necessary.”

“Oh…oh, right. Erm…Emissary?”

Something about Sisko’s laugh reminded him of glasses ringing in toast or _krek_ on the table. “I think, Doctor, that at fifty years old, you should consider calling me ‘Ben.’”

Ben. It certainly didn’t feel right, but he felt a tad silly admitting that. “Ben,” he tried. “Ben.” No, he couldn’t make that work. He would have to think of something else. “It’s…it’s good to see you, sir. I’ve—well, _we’ve_ all missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too. Though, of course, I’m still with you all in places you can’t see. That you haven’t seen yet.”

Julian nodded politely, though he wasn’t sure at all what that meant. Or where they were. Or what was happening. “Um, Kasidy and Jake are doing well. Jake has grown! A best-selling author now! And, oh, your daughter, Jini. I’ve just met her. She’s wonderful.”

“She is.” The tone of his voice was familiar; it hit the same note of bursting pride as when he spoke of Jake. It made Julian wonder, with a brief stab, how it might feel to have such a father. “I talk to her now and again. Though, of course, she’s at the age where I’m sure she could stand to hear from me a little less.”

Julian chuckled. “Yes, I’m afraid I know what you mean. We’re nearing that with our two at the moment.” He looked around as he spoke, just now fully aware of his surroundings. It looked precisely like the pavilion, but Julian knew it wasn’t—not really. He couldn’t articulate how he knew, but it gave the same faint sense of unreality as the holosuite sometimes did. A piece of projected food not entirely nourishing. “And… you two… you and Jini—you talk…like _this_?”

“Something like this.” Sisko’s expression was opaque.

“I see.” Though, of course, he didn’t. “And…and what exactly is _this_, sir?” He reached out and touched one of the pavilion’s lacquered pillars. It was as solid as ever. “Are we…on Cardassia?”

“Yes,” Sisko said, before tilting his head in amendment. “And no. You’re on Cardassia. I’m…well, it’s difficult to describe where I am. I’m in a few places, at the moment.”

Julian tried to stopper the tiny bloom of disappointment in his chest, but he wasn’t entirely successful. “Oh. I—I was hoping you were…you know, _back_.”

“I think you’ve had more than enough surprise entrances for one birthday, Doctor,” he chuckled, leaning against the pillar beside him. “But I _did_ want to give you a gift.”

Apparently, tonight, there would never be enough surprises. “Another gift? I—I’ve gotten so many gifts tonight, I can hardly believe it.”

“You’ve _given_ a lot of gifts, Doctor. It’s only right you should receive the same. Isn’t that the idea of the _seren’Ora, _after all_? _To reward such acts?_”_

Sisko’s generosity was matter-of-fact in a way Julian had always found especially gratifying. “Yes, sir. ‘To give what was given’,” he quoted Akleen dutifully. “Or so Elim is always saying.”

“It seems to me if there’s anything tonight should have proven, it’s that you’ve made an incredible difference in a great many lives. Healed wounds, cured diseases, raised children, brought together Cardassia and the Federation, and, perhaps most importantly of all, inspired _hope_.”

Julian exhaled loudly. It was a heady list when laid out end-to-end. He shuffled his feet, unsure what to say. It was more than he could have dreamed possible—or at least, more than he _should_ have dreamed. He’d always had a tendency to dream bigger than reason should allow.

Sisko clearly sensed something in the pause. “And yet…?”

Julian swallowed. His weight shifted between the balls of his feet.

_And yet…_

Julian allowed himself to touch the thought for the first time—a thought that had loomed, dark but disallowed all night.

He’d accomplished it all, yes, and it certainly brought him joy. For most of the night, he’d felt as if his heart were tied to one of Elim’s balloons, light and buoyant.

And yet…

There was a weight. There was always a weight. It kept that balloon grounded with its tiny heaviness. It wasn’t much, but it was inescapable.

“You disagree, Doctor?” Sisko pressed. “You don’t feel you’ve earned this celebration?”

“I…I’ve been lucky.” No. No that wasn’t it. He swallowed, as if it might keep the words in. It didn’t. “I’ve had…_advantages_.”

“Ahh. As I suspected,” Sisko nodded sagely, smile gone somber but not gone altogether. Julian found that reassuring somehow. “Even after all this time, Doctor, you still exist—”

There was a gust of air; the smallest tug at his navel. The pavilion remained still around them, the stars unmoving.

But between them, a new scene appeared.

“—_here_.”

For a moment, Julian couldn’t make sense of it, this scene so very out of place. A short, skinny boy lying on a carpet, staring sidewise at a neat line of toy starships. He hummed the same four notes, strung endlessly: C, G, A, G, C, G, A, G, C…

Julian almost caught himself humming it back. It was a half-memory, but he knew it.

This was _him_.

Beside him on the carpet, his mother sat, cross-legged, watching. Nearby in an armchair, his father read the paper. They had the easy expressions of a Sunday morning.

“You still exist _here, _Doctor,” Sisko repeated simply and pointed at the humming boy.

Julian circled the scene, examining it from every angle and trying to remember. The starships were arranged by size, large to small, but, as he watched, the little version of him—_no, of Jules_—rearranged them until they stood in order of nacel-class. The humming never stopped.

When his mother offered him a compliment on the arrangement, he didn’t look up.

It might have been a lovely, homey scene. But it wasn’t.

“I don’t exist here,” Julian sighed as he crouched down on the rug and leaned close to Jules. He searched the boy’s face, though for what, he didn’t know. “This boy is gone.”

“Is he?”

_Could you stop that humming, Jules?_ His dad’s voice was rough and cut across. God, that tone had hurt as a boy. He could still feel it grate, down low.

Jules didn’t stop humming. He didn’t look up.

_Amsha, can’t you do something about that? _The paper crumpled in his father’s lap. _It’s driving me batty._

Still the humming, but louder. Jules raised his volume to match his father’s. The notes were the same, but they strained, like the whine of a machine over-stressed.

C , G, A , C. C,G,A,C.

Julian closed his eyes. Tried to concentrate on the notes.

_Cut that _out_, Jules! _Fists clenched. _Can’t you understand me? Stop. Bloody. Humming!_

Mum laid a gentling hand on Jules’s back. It made no difference. _Richard, it helps him. He doesn’t know—_

_‘Course he doesn’t._ A hand raked through hair. _I swear, Amsha, we have to deal with this. I’ve told you. We need to get ahead of it before he—_

_Richard, you heard what the teachers said. We have to give it _time_. Sometimes these things—_

But his father was gone. Gone from the room in a rumble of epithets and promises and apologies.

And she—she was crying.

God, Julian had always hated to see her cry.

Little Jules didn’t like it either, it seemed. The four hummed notes had merged, and he lay on the carpet, the line of starships scattered in an angry swipe.

Father had been wrong. Little Jules _did _understand something. He understood that he was the cause.

Amsha cast about her, tearful eyes darting in search. _Oh, oh, my sweet…it’s…it’s going to be alright…_She wiped at her cheeks, trying to clear her eyes. _It’s going to be fine. You’re safe, you’re fine…_

Julian knew what she was looking for with an immediate certainty he couldn’t explain.

_Ah, here we are--_

When she found it, resting under a nearby table leg, she pulled too quickly.

The _rrrrrrriiiipppp_ was quiet but terrible. A puff of batting, fell, white, like a tragedy. She cradled the toy, delicate, tears shaking into sobs as she lifted the bear’s brown arm. It dangled by a thread.

Julian felt tears in his eyes, too. He’d known: he’d known and yet, seeing it like this…

_Oh, Jules. I’m… sorry…I’m so sorry…_

The words eked out between sobs. Julian could tell, now; they were about more than the bear.

He turned away. He didn’t want to see this. Why was Sisko doing this to him?

“Wait a moment, Doctor.” Sisko insisted. “_Watch_.”

When Julian finally managed to turn back, the monotone of the groan remained, but little Jules was sitting up. Still rocking, he’d taken the torn bear in his own small hands. His fingers plucked at the thread, curiously, and, gently, he pulled it. Looped it. His hands shook, and several times, slipped from their aim entirely. But he did not stop. He held it closer and worked, groan taking on the quality of a prayer.

It took time and frustration, but eventually he raised it to his mother’s eyes. He kept his own on the carpet.

His voice was small and flat, but the words he echoed back at her were clear. _It’s alright. It’s fine. Oh my sweet. It’s alright. It’s fine._

Amsha bundled him into her lap, and they rocked together. Slowly. She stroked his hair.

Eventually, the notes returned.

C. G. A. G. C. G. A. G.

But they continued to rock.

“You see, Doctor, I don’t look at this moment and see a poor, lost little boy who would have accomplished none of the things you’ve heard about tonight.” Sisko laid a hand on Julian’s back, a mirror of his mother. “I look at Jules, and I see _you_, Doctor. I see the man we came together to celebrate. The man who puts things back together no matter what. The man who heals.”

Sisko’s words sounded far away, but Julian felt each one, a deep pluck in his chest as he crouched on the carpet beside his mother.

And beside himself. “Jules is still part of me. That’s…that’s what you’re saying.” Tears burned at the back of his throat.

“I see time differently now, Julian. I—I can’t explain it, but some moments—they break time apart like light fractured through glass. And in all of those times, in all of the places, _this_ is the Julian Bashir I see.” Sisko’s hand was warm on his back, steadying him. “Jules isn’t just a part of you, Doctor. He’s the _best_ part of you.”

As he watched little Jules’s fingers reach up to stroke his mother’s hair, Julian wept.

The hummed notes sounded like music. The rocking was a joy.

“Happy Birthday, Doctor Bashir. You’ve _earned_ it.” He could hear the smile—that proud, bursting smile—in Sisko’s voice.

White began to swell again, gibbering behind tears.

“I’ll see you again, Julian. When the time is right.” There was a pause and, what Julian thought, through the rising white, might have been a chuckle. “Oh, and, say hello to Mister Garak for me, will you?” His laugh shivered the brightness. “Tell him you’re the best part of _him_, too.”

**********************

It took time for the white to subside—to surrender him again to the Cardassian night. Slowly, though, it melted into the stars and the three moons and the pale, gold light that seeped from photolanterns overhead.

This was the real thing. This was _home_.

Julian’s breath still shivered, something still tight in his throat, wet in his eyes. He kept to those bright stars, letting his gaze drift toward Bajor. Toward the wormhole and the station. And toward the place he could only assume the Captain was. Watching them. Or knowing them, somehow. Julian still didn’t really understand the how—just the why.

The Captain, the Emissary, had given him _peace. _The deep peace of being, for once, entirely comfortable with his own happiness. And with himself.

He closed his eyes as a warm breeze brushed his face. God, it was a beautiful night.

“Don’t tell me you’ve had your fill already?”

Kelas’s serene face beside him was entirely welcome. He didn’t think he could handle the Castellan or the President right now.

“No, no. Just…taking a breath,” Julian said, leaning onto the pavilion column with a sigh. “Enjoying the night.”

“Then I take it your _seren’Ora_ fears have been assuaged?”

He didn’t resent Kelas’s teasing tone: it was hard to imagine how much he’d been dreading all this just a few hours ago. “Certainly. And, you were right. It’s been very _surprising_.”

“Mmm. The best _seren’Ora_ are,” Kelas said, sipping a gold glass of _civit_ with a smile. “Helps get you through all the tedious poetry, I say.”

Julian smiled. He was glad to know he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. “I hope the castellan agrees. I think everyone got more surprises than they bargained for, and I don’t want anyone getting in trouble on my account.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to speak ill of your guests tonight. They’ve all been exceptionally kind. And generous. In fact, I’ve just been speaking with your Mister O’Brien, and he’s suggested—with the castellan’s permission, of course—that he might stay a few cycles to help integrate the industrial replicators here on Prime. He seems rather enthusiastic for it, actually.”

Julian laughed. After seven years spent cursing Cardassian engineering, Miles was surely the most qualified in all of Starfleet. But enthusiastic? Things truly had changed.

Well, all the better for their battle strategy going into the Black Dunes. “Miles it the best man for the job, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt. And his wife… a lovely woman! She’s done research on the Bajorans’ reclamation projects and has some intriguing ideas about the bio-engineering factors of our growth colonies up north. I believe she’s planning to arrange a collaboration between her department on Bajor and a few U of U scientists the castellan recommended.”

Miles _and_ Keiko? Perhaps this evening would do more for Federation and Cardassian relations than even the President had planned.

“An irony, isn’t it?” Kelas half-sighed, leaning forward towards the night himself. “Cardassia and Bajor, working together. Making things _grow_.”

It was a maudlin sentiment, Julian admitted, but when he turned to survey the room, he couldn’t help but agree. Ziam and Jinial leaned close and whispered. Issen and Kirayoshi still busied themselves at the Alamo, arranging a line along the battlements, just so. And Kira was dancing with the Castellan herself, now, nodding solemnly as the castellan spoke, eyes to the floor. They moved smoothly. Neither looked happy, but neither did they seem troubled. Merely thoughtful. Open.

Well, if it was maudlin, it was a very pretty sort.

“We’re lucky you brought everyone together tonight,” Kelas said, and, after a slight hesitation: “You and…your husband.”

Julian offered a small smile of acknowledgment: compliments of Elim were not easy. “And you, too, let’s not forget. It wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

“As much as I’d like to take credit, it was your husband’s doing. I sent a few messages, but this was his work. His idea. And his, I’m beginning to suspect,” he eyed the balloons over his spectacles, “slightly illegal smuggling.”

Julian hoped that bit of rule-breaking might be overlooked. “Yes, well, that’s Elim. Always a trick up his sleeve.” The inappropriateness of such a sentiment struck him a second too late. He moved on quickly. “And…yeah, and I have no idea how I’m going to thank him. Nothing I can give him will ever compare to _this_.” He gestured at the entire pavilion, glittering and joyous and all for him.

Kelas looked as if he might say something, but closed his mouth and looked away, eyes drifting back to the spring sky. His look was the same as Kira’s had been—not sad, but considerate. Reluctantly so.

Julian’s own eyes followed, and he let the conversation wane, soft music wrapping them instead. As always in spring, the arc of stars known as the Koirala sparkled above the three moons, earning its name as Midnight’s Crown. Gray clouds blotted stars here and there, but the Koirala and the Talluvian sparkled boldly and without blemish. Their light was as silver-thin as the _azal_ strings sighing the _ilt’ij_.

“The Hebitians used to believe that behind everything we experience—all the randomness of our small, individual lives—there is, deep down, a profound design. A story that underlies the chaos of what we see in life.” Kelas’s voice was distant though they stood close, and his gaze remained fixed on the night. “The Great Song they called it. They said, in fact, that if you stare up at the Talluvian and are very, very still, at certain times, you may hear a few notes.”

Julian listened. Elim had told him something like this before, though he’d prefaced it with a warning that all things Hebitian were absolute waffle and certainly not to be given credence.

Even so, Julian had caught Elim staring at Talluvia more than few times.

“When I look around this room, I feel I can almost hear it myself,” Kelas added, faint.

Julian didn’t need to turn. All night he had been watching the two halves of his life mingle, dance, and it was hard to escape the impression that all the broken lines of his story had resolved into something whole. Into a picture he could, in some way, begin to understand. It had the harmony of planets circling, as if his feet were planted, firm but small, in the weft of some larger thing.

_A ridiculous notion_, he heard Elim chide almost automatically in his mind. And maybe it was. Like seeing shapes in the clouds, pictures in the arrangement of stars.

But being ridiculous was something Julian wasn’t willing to give up, it seemed. Not even at five _dassek_.

“This was quite an undertaking, bringing this together,” Kelas said at length, swirling his _civit_ glass, moving his gaze from the stars to its depth. “An aesthetic success, yes, but logistical too. He—Garak—he has a head for that sort of thing.”

Julian smiled and turned back from the Talluvian to find its reflection in Kelas’s spectacles. “Oh, yes, he does. Don’t know if the kids would get out the door to school if it was just me.”

Kelas nodded. “Mmm. The castellan was just telling me that, since the Negus’s funds for the city were given in your name, she is planning to ask your advice on how we might best manage them. Including, she mentioned, asking if there were any representatives you thought might be best qualified for the task.”

For a beat…then two…Julian felt a stretch in his gut, as if the white light were taking him again. He knew his mouth must be open from the hot, thick taste of night air.

What…what was Kelas suggesting?

“She asked, and I told the castellan that, if the someone you name is Elim Garak, I will not…immediately object.”

The look on Kelas’s face was not certain, and the words were carved with deliberateness. There was still something beneath.

Even so, Kelas smiled. It was small and fond. And one of the most beautiful things Julian had ever seen.

And yet…

“Kelas… you don’t have to.” _Elim, please forgive me, _p’rimit_._ “You know I don’t…I’ve never begrudged you your feelings on the matter. Your opinion. Your…experience.”

“I know, Julian. I do. But…” The sigh came from somewhere deep: this hadn’t been a sudden—or an easy—decision. “Time wears even the mountains down, my Amma used to say, and it’s the kind of wisdom you don’t understand until you’ve a bit more time at your back, I think. The heart gets tired of holding onto such things.”

Julian’s own heart lurched and fluttered between reluctant happiness and the sticky, hot feeling that it wasn’t _right_. As much as it hurt to say it—to think it—Julian had no reason to believe Elim had done anything in particular to earn this honor. And Julian certainly didn’t want Kelas to do it as a favor. He refused to be responsible for any more harm. Kelas had seen enough of it. “Kelas, I don’t…I don’t want you to do this for me.” He swallowed. “We’ve—we’ve made our peace with it.”

A furrow dug deep around Kelas’s _chu’fa_. “Julian, I’m not doing this for _you_.” He straightened, as if drawing the words up from his middle. He met Julian’s eyes fully. “I’m doing it _because_ of you. Because, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from listening to everything tonight, it’s that you are a force of healing. And of hope. And I trust that, if you feel Garak is the man for the job—if he will serve Cardassia _as she is now_—then…then I trust you.”

As a general rule, Cardassians weren’t entirely comfortable with trust.

Nor were they fond of overt public displays of affection. Occasionally, in twilit parks, you might spy couples plighting troth and holding hands in ways they wouldn’t in full light, but, by and large, such displays were best kept private.

For once, however, Julian didn’t give a damn about Cardassian tradition. He pulled Kelas close, wrapping him in as tight an embrace as he could, cheek pressed to cheek, arms squeezing with abandon.

“Kelas…I…I don’t know what to say.” He pulled back just enough to see the expression on the other man’s face—a mix of confusion and amusement and discomfort. But Julian couldn’t bring himself to let go. 

“Don’t mistake me, Julian.” Kelas’s tone was firm, and he stepped gracefully back until Julian’s hands had only a gentle grasp on his. “I plan to ensure there is oversight. And plenty of it.”

“Of course, of course.”

“There will be eyes on everything he does,” Kelas added. “Mine most especially.”

“Elim always did like a bit of attention.”

“He won’t be able to requisition so much as a pencil without someone reviewing it.”

Julian nodded. None of that mattered. Elim would prove himself. They’d all see it.

Kelas’s smile returned, and he gave Julian’s hands a small squeeze. “But I…I think that, all things equal, it could be for the good of Cardassia.”

Julian had never been quite sure how to describe such moments—or even how to understand them. Neither he nor Kelas said anything more and yet words passed between. Confessions and apologies and uncomfortable questions, all answered. Gratitude. And acceptance.

And something that was almost the note of a song deeper and more reverend.

A few spoken words did shake loose, too, before Julian could think better. “Thank you, Kelas. _S’sams’ka._”

Pale eyes widened slightly. It was a phrase rarely heard outside the home and with no precise Standard translation, though in this case, Julian was grateful for the jagged semantic borders between his native tongue and his newer one. The traditional UT might have provided _I love you_, but that was a shoe that didn’t fit—not quite. _S’sams’ka_ left equal room for brother, uncle, father, lover. It could encompass both passion and responsibility, declared by elder siblings or whispered in one of those twilit parks.

It said only, _You are part of me; I need you as I need a limb. _

Julian had said it to his husband, to his children, and, now, to Kelas.

With feeling.

Kelas didn’t answer. The tiny knit between his eyes said he didn’t entirely approve of such words being spoken at all. It was a face Julian had seen Elim make on plenty of occasions when Julian’s romanticism got the better of hard-learned Cardassian manners.

Julian opened his mouth to repair the damage, but was interrupted.

“Julian. Doctor.” Miles O’Brien had stepped up and was tugging at his suit jacket in a way Julian recognized immediately. He was uncomfortable. “Hope I’m not interrupting, but I, uh, I had a few questions about the power grids you use at the hospital. I was thinking about one of the replicators for, for medical infrastructure, yeah? And—Doctor Parmak, if you’re—”

“Are you asking Doctor Parmak to dance?” Julian teased, indicating the dance floor that now seethed with the pulse of the _nar’ij_.

This earned him precisely the look he’d expected. It was Miles’s best _sod off_ look. “Actually, if I could get a moment _alone_, Doctor Parmak, I thought we might discuss it over a little taste of Earth.” Miles gestured to a table where he’d poured whiskey into two glasses: one for himself, one, it seemed, for Kelas. “Since you were good enough to share your _civit_, I thought you might appreciate a nip of a good Macallan. Got a smooth, pretty kick, just the same.”

Well, _well_. Miles didn’t share the Macallan with just anyone: he must genuinely enjoy Kelas’s company.

“Of course, Mister O’Brien. It would be my pleasure.” It was good to see a similarly warm smile mirrored on Kelas’s face. The enjoyment was mutual.

“Excellent. I’ll—I’ll be just over there.”

Julian hoped he wasn’t smiling too much.

Miles really had changed.

As had they all, he supposed.

The last note of the _nar’ij_ hit hard before fading altogether. The nightlocusts took up the call.

“Well,” Kelas sighed with finality. “It seems I’m needed for an important cross-cultural exchange.”

The stars still shone in Kelas spectacles: Julian stared into the Talluvian without thought. “Thank you, Kelas. For everything.”

Kelas shook his head. “No, Julian. You don’t have to thank me. And…I hope you know —” He gave a long pause; it was full. He gave Julian’s hands one more squeeze before, gently, he allowed them to fall apart. “As I said, any gratitude for this evening is your husband’s. But I do hope that, now, you have something you can give him in return.”

The realization of it fluttered, pleasant and unstuck, in his chest.

Elim. Yes, he had to tell Elim.

His eyes darted across the room until he found his husband, leading President Troi from the dance floor.

“_S’sams’ka_, Julian,” Kelas whispered with a small bow, before he turned away to join Miles O’Brien for a drink.

The song that picked up next was not one of cosmic significance—not one the Hebitians would have recognized, with its flouncing trumpet and swinging beat.

But it was happy. His favorite sort of song.

Julian took a deep breath and went to talk to his husband.

*********************

It was in his fourth year on Cardassia that Julian first heard the story of Kitsak and Jasaa. The patient who relayed it—a man well into his thirteenth _dassek_—had looked concerned to hear that Julian was to be enjoined. He wasn’t the only one. Cardassian elders all seemed concerned a human couldn’t possibly comprehend the seriousness of the arrangement, and this story was far from the first piece of well-intentioned advice Julian had received on the subject. In the weeks prior, there had been any number of cryptic proverbs and morality lectures and quoted verses from Akleen’s _The Duty and the Line._

Nevertheless, Julian had tried to be polite, half-listening as he’d adjusted the IV settings. This one, at least, was a story. Told in far simpler, less excruciating prose than that schlock of Akleen’s.

_Kitsak and Jasaa were the first-borne children in their families and the pride of their lines. Before the two hatchlings had even grown claws, their mothers had drawn up the enjoinment contract—a boon to both families. Everyone in their township agreed the match was a propitious one, and, as the two hatchlings grew to adulthood, this assessment seemed ever more correct. Both Kitsak and Jasaa grew into successful, driven citizens. Both excelled in their studies and then their careers. Both displayed patience and responsibility that presaged a readiness for children and for the honorable continuance of the family line. _

_However, despite it all, from the moment they met, Kitsak and Jasaa felt nothing for one another. Sitting at the _gelat_ house, they found little to discuss. Kitsak’s eyes were a green Jasaa found distasteful, while Jasaa had a voice Kitsak insisted was worse than a squawking koia bird. Neither took pleasure in an imagined bedding. Whether the line would continue, they began to doubt._

_Eventually, certain such commitment would be a grave mistake, Kitsak and Jasaa begged the local magistrate to dissolve the agreement, and, though it was unusual to do so, the magistrate eventually acquiesced. There was little to be gained from forcing a match on an unwilling couple, especially two young people who could likely find equally suitable partners. _

_However, a contract as complex and longstanding as their betrothal required far more than a simple magistrate’s authorization. In order to be fully separated, the magistrate said, the two would have to travel to the capital to speak with a Sector Archon. In those days, the capitol was a four-day trip from their township, and neither family owned riding hounds._

_But Kitsak and Jasaa were resolved, so they set out on foot._

_The first day, the couple traveled in awkward silence, exchanging only the barest pleasantries. _

_The first night, they slept far from one another even in the chill night air. _

_The second day, they came upon a festival market that tempted them with the promise of fresh fruit and homemade _mis’sia_ pie. They ate well and mingled with the locals. Jasaa wore a crown of woven harat grasses, and even Kitsak had to admit she danced well. The _mis’sia_ pie was the best either had ever eaten._

_The second night, around the fire, they laughed as they remembered the children who wrapped themselves in gray melon vines, pretending to be guls. _

_On the third day, the couple stumbled upon the tracks of a large _hongle_, and Jasaa confessed herself afraid of the beasts. Kitsak walked closer to reassure her. They slowed, and, when no _hongle_ reared its ugly head, they stopped for a short rest, allowing themselves leftover slices of _mis’sia_. Jasaa apologized for her silly fear. Kitsak shrugged and, not wanting her to feel embarrassed, confessed that he often found himself afraid sleeping out in the dark. _

_On the third night, Jasaa learned that Kitsak played the _azal_. They argued heatedly about the merits of Ghivak’s _Orange Symphonies_, Kitsak’s favorite piece. They argued until the fire was almost gone, and, when it was time to sleep, they curled together for warmth. Kitsak was not afraid._

_By the time they arrived at the capitol on the fourth day, they paused at the door of the archon’s office and found they wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk home. _

Julian had let the pause at the end of the story stretch too long. The machines had beeped disapprovingly.

At the elder’s pointed look, Julian had offered what was typically expected: what Cardassians so often wanted to hear. _Yes, betrothal is not a bond to be broken. Enjoinment is a commitment, and prelude to a family and lineage._

But the old man had shaken his head and frowned, with a hard-fought patience Julian also frequently saw. _No, Bashir, s’sava. That’s not what it means. _

Julian had smiled a little, hearing the echo in another moment—_What else could it mean?_

And the old man had laid a gentle hand on his arm. _The love of enjoinment is not born on its first day. Love comes from what is shared and what is lived. The _mis’sia_ pie and the _hongle_, too._

Julian sighed at the memory, taking in the gray and silver _ithian _trees; the stars woven in between. At his and Elim’s ankles as they walked, _harat_ grass rustled, and the breeze was heavy with the scent of blossoms further ahead.

Cardassians still traditionally went for a walk before agreeing to enjoinment. To symbolize Kitsak and Jasaa’s walk, yes, but also to symbolize their own walk through life—everything that would be shared. _Didn’t your young man take you on the walk, s’sava? _the old man had asked, worried.

Indeed Elim had. They walked in that very same spot now: in the spot where, thirteen years earlier, he had told Elim he wanted to stay on Cardassia. And the spot where, to Julian’s surprise, Elim had gotten down on one knee in the red, cakey clay. _I did my research, my dear, _Elim had said, affronted, misreading Julian’s surprise_. I know how these things are done. _Truly, though, Julian had been more surprised to see Elim willingly risk his favorite pair of silk trousers in the process.

“And may I ask what is so very amusing?” Elim looked at him sideways as they walked. In the moonlight, those blue eyes practically glowed. The same as then—so much the same.

“I was just thinking about a walk we took here. And a pair of ruined trousers.”

“Ahh.” Elim looked as if he’d just experienced the loss anew. “Yes. I’ve never found a silk quite that tint again. But…what is that human expression? ‘Faint heart never one fair lad.’”

Julian chuckled. He didn’t hear Elim speak Standard much these days. “Something like that.”

“And is that the purpose of our turn around the park, my dear? To relive the morning I sacrificed three _ghek_ of Kr’rausian silk in exchange for the heart of one Federation doctor?” He stopped to gesture down to his black trousers, still perfectly neat, pleat utterly intact. Julian had never quite figured out how Elim always managed to look as if he’d just taken the clothing off the rack. “I’d be more than happy to sacrifice these, if you’re amenable. Though my knees might thank me somewhat less these days.”

There was a devious sparkle in those blue eyes, but Julian knew better than to take the bait.

“I’m told you should expect these bouts of sentimental nostalgia with my advancing age,” he sighed instead.

“Mmm, and a few glasses of _breet_-vintage help that along, no doubt.”

Julian smiled. That was true, too. His muscles were loose and his mind fuzzy with kanar, as if a little moonlight had eked inside.

It was wonderful. Perfect for this.

Back in the pavilion, Julian had considered telling Elim the good news in the midst of a _mor’ij_ danced close or over a proud toast with _krek_, but, in the end, he’d decided it wasn’t a moment to share. They’d shared enough tonight. This was a moment he wanted filled with only him and Elim and the trill of the nightlocusts.

This was part of their walk.

Julian took his husband’s hands and told him.

What he’d expected, he wasn’t sure. Surprise and joy, perhaps. Or something more subtle, more Elim’s style. A twitch of smile and a wry remark. A shared embrace and kiss and then a walk back to the pavilion while they planned…

Instead, Elim froze. All the lightness of the moment before crystallized into a cool, impenetrable something Julian hadn’t seen in years. By the time Julian had finished, in fact, Elim looked much as he had when they’d first touched down on the scarred and desolate earth of Cardassia after the Fire. Devoid on the surface, but, just below, pointed steel, turned inward.

“E—Elim?” He searched the other man’s face. He found nothing. “Are you--?”

“I’m fine, my dear.”

Julian glared. “I expect better lies, Elim.”

“I’m fine. Just… surprised.”

“Oh.” Well, that made sense. It _was_ rather sudden. “Oh, of course. After tonight I know how you feel. Maybe I’m just suffering surprise fatigue. Should we take a seat, maybe?” Julian glanced around for a nearby bench or—

But Elim was already taking a moment, there, against the obliging trunk of a thorntree. With his usual grace, he had lowered to a seat in the grass and sat, face still a blank, gaze still fixed somewhere both far away and very deep inside.

And so they sat.

The silence opened, dark as the sky and disrupted only by the distant whisper of skimmers and the little grunts and puffs of adjustment one couldn’t help sitting on the ground at half a century. Elim didn’t move, and Julian did his level best not to trawl each inch of his husband’s face in hopes of catching a hint of his thoughts. Guls, Elim hated that.

He turned his eyes up instead, in search of Talluvia—in search of a little piece of understanding.

The universe, too, had gone unreadable.

What lay behind this silence, Julian couldn’t be sure. Shock maybe, but calculation more likely. Elim was nothing if not skeptical of a windfall. Julian had once tried to teach him the aphorism _don’t look a gift horse in the mouth_: in return, Elim had taught Julian what he claimed was an old Order adage: _Every gift is a debt and a bow._

But Julian knew that, in times like these, it was best not to press. The years had taught him that Elim liked to think, to arrange his words just so. He liked space to sort things through, and, more often than not, this silence. Pressing before Elim was ready often resulted in an argument—and not the good, flirty sort.

Just below the knee, a deep, red smear of mud blotted his trousers. Julian ran a finger over it.

The problem was, Julian had just never quite gotten the hang of silence.

“Elim,” he tried, leaning forward slightly, voice and body.

Elim said nothing.

“Elim, I’m sorry. I thought—guls, I thought you’d be happy.”

That got him to look up. “Of _course_ I am.” Eyes matched the sharpness of his voice.

“Forgive me if I’m having trouble believing that as you snap at me like a grouchy old dragon.”

Some of the sharpness dulled. “Of _course_ I’m happy.” There was a small smile, though it was a performance. But, behind it, eyes not joined, Elim let him glimpse it. Glimpse the something the lurked behind.

_Oh, Elim. _

“You’re happy, but you’re also…” He couldn’t say it somehow. It was still so hard to imagine Elim Garak—

“Afraid, yes.” Elim’s voice didn’t flinch from the word. In fact, he had the grim evenness of a man reading off charges. “I’m happy to serve Cardassia. I’ve always been _more_ than happy to serve her. _Enthusiastic_, even.” A finger reached forward, traced the thin blade of grass with its tip. Elim rarely fidgeted. “That’s the _trouble_.” He stopped. Brought the errant finger back to rest.

“_What’s_ the trouble, Elim?”

The pause was the heavy clench before the delivery of a sentence. “I have wondered, occasionally, if… Parmak was right.”

The weight of the confession sat dark between them.

Julian swallowed. “If Parmak was right…that you shouldn’t be allowed to serve.”

“Yes.” Elim’s tone stayed level. “If he was right that my true nature is, perhaps, undesirable outside the interrogation chamber. That, if, given time and free rein—"

“Your ‘true nature’?” Julian interrupted.

Elim said nothing. Did nothing.

“Do you think _that’s _your true nature?”

In all their years, he’d never asked.

No—no, in all their years, he’d been too afraid to ask.

“Parmak should know,” Elim said, flat. “He had a clear view.”

“He obviously thinks you’re worth some risk or he wouldn’t—”

“My dear…” Elim’s light touch on his hand was cool but tender. And then withdrawn. “Parmak, like everyone here tonight, has succumbed to your entirely admirable charms. I think I, like Cardassia, have simply been the fortunate beneficiary.”

Julian longed to pull Elim’s hand back to him. This was a topic they had avoided—a topic Julian still longed to avoid.

But part of him returned to that white space, and to Captain Sisko’s smile.

_True nature_. That’s what it was about, wasn’t it? So much of what he and Elim had tortured themselves with for so long.

And what was Elim’s _true nature_? Julian had never known.

Was that moment with Kelas—was that the moment Elim existed in? If Captain Sisko were to show it to him, would Julian see the same man he married?

Perhaps the Captain had the right idea: perhaps it was better not to avoid but to look again, with older eyes. An older heart.

Julian tried to, pushing past a very _reluctant _older heart.

There was—had always been—a lingering question. One he hadn’t asked.

He asked it now. “Why didn’t you torture him, Elim?”

Elim’s brow furrowed.

“Kelas…why didn’t you torture him?”

Elim was clearly just as reluctant. “I didn’t need to.”

Julian swallowed again. His mouth felt drier this time. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I—I was given to understand it wasn’t so much _work_ for you. That you—” He found he couldn’t actually say it.

Elim didn’t miss that. “That I _enjoyed_ it.”

He managed a nod.

“I…” Elim measured something internal: it weighed. “I wouldn’t say I _enjoyed_ it. Successful interrogation was a benefit to Cardassia. _That_ I enjoyed.” His posture stiffened slightly as if against a blow. “I enjoyed being good at what I did. Immensely.”

Julian didn’t have a response to that, so he moved on. “But what was done to Kelas…it could have been worse.”

“I suppose.”

“You took the most humane route available in that instance,” Julian said, though they both knew it was a question.

“No, my dear.” A huff. “I took the _Cardassian_ route. The _human_e route would have been to say ‘no.’ I could have refused, as Kelas would no doubt point out.”

“But is that true? Could you have said ‘no’?”

Silence.

“If you’d refused, another agent would have taken your place, yes? Done something worse, maybe?” Julian pressed.

That genuinely seemed to baffle him. “What is the point of this temporizing? I’ve never known you to be an apologist for my—” Elim cut some other word off before it had breath. Julian was grateful. “My _unseemly_ behaviors.”

“I’m not,” Julian said, and the sick knot in his stomach confirmed it. “I know you did…terrible things. I know Kelas wasn’t the only one. But… I suppose what I’m asking is if that—those unseemly behaviors—are they really… your _true_ _nature?_”

Elim slumped once more, back pressing into the thorntree’s rough bark. His eyes floated away. “Perhaps ‘in my genes’ would be more accurate.”

Genes. God, Julian had had enough of worrying about genes. There had to be more to it. “I’d say your father had something to do with it, yes, but not like that. I think he convinced you it was your true nature. I think he built everything up around you to make you believe it. But when you were in that room with Kelas—when it was just you and him and you looked him in the eyes—you didn’t do it.”

Elim stayed turned away.

“I think _that’s_ your true nature, too, Elim.”

Julian couldn’t tell if the long silence that ticked was thick with thought or with hurt, but he couldn’t help the impression that it left tracks behind either way. 

“That’s a very romantic view of me, my dear,” Elim said at last.

“I’ve known you a long time. I’ve seen you from plenty of angles.”

“Perhaps you’ve seen my best side,” he said, eyes finally turning back. They were dark in a way they hadn’t been in years. Uncertain. “There’s one that’s not so pretty.”

The sick knot in his gut loosened, ever so slightly. What lingered in those blue eyes made Julian, at least for a moment, entirely certain. Certain that, in the end, the better angels of Elim Garak’s nature would win out. Certain that his husband, after years of living without the poisonous diet of his youth and his profession, might, in fact, know what was right.

“A side of you that’s not pretty? I don’t believe it,” Julian teased speculatively, inching closer.

“My dear, I had thought that at five _dassek_ some of these more romantic notions might have matured,” he said, annoyed, though there was less sharpness to his voice. “Every once in a while, even you humans manage to get it right. ‘One may smile and smile and be a villain.’”

Julian, as appropriate, smiled. “Mmm. Quoting _Hamlet_. Now I _know_ it’s serious.” He inched a little closer, leaning against the thorntree as well, allowing their shoulders to touch. “Well, if you’re that serious—if you’re really afraid you shouldn’t serve—I suppose you should consider saying no when the castellan makes the offer.”

Julian didn’t have to look over to know the scandalized expression on his husband’s face. He knew every detail. _Loved_ every detail.

“My dear, I can’t turn down a request from the castellan. You know that. It would be…unthinkably tactless.”

“Mmm,” he hummed with a shrug. “Then I suppose you have a decision to make. Because I _am_ going to recommend you.”

Julian didn’t miss the little huff, the stiff indignation.

“So you have a choice,” Julian continued. “You can either behave in an efficient, morally upstanding way in the service of Cardassia or …say no to the Castellan of the Union and _severely_ breech protocol.”

This silence was not thick but not heavy.

It was the silence of an exit door, opened outwards.

“My dear, I do believe you’re a bit of a sadist yourself,” Elim murmured, finally. His tone was withering, but when he leaned back, he set gentle fingers atop Julian’s. He wanted to take that exit. “An untrained natural.”

“You love being tortured by my idealistic notions,” he said, threading their fingers thoroughly. He looked at Elim and didn’t look away. He waited until his husband could do the same.

When their eyes met, it was all there. All the things they’d done and made and been. The station. The war. Their children. Their homes.

Their walk. And everything that had grown from it: true love and true natures, alike.

“Elim, I know you. You’ll do this, and you’ll do it well. You can’t dwell in the torture chambers.”

There was doubt in those blue eyes, but he nodded, sketched.

No, it wasn’t enough.

He took Elim’s chin in his hand and forced the man to look at him fully. He had to understand.

“Elim Garak,” he said, with a force he knew couldn’t be ignored. “There’s hope for you yet.”

And just like that, they were kissing.

The kiss was not the heated sort they’d enjoyed in those early days. It wasn’t the sort of grab-you-by-the-ridges kind of kiss Julian had given Elim that first time in the holosuite (and that he’d, to be honest, imagined and choreographed fully for quite some time before). This kiss was slow and thorough and knew its shape. This was a kiss that spoke and was heard. It comforted in a way no words ever could.

“You are a wonder, _p’rimit_,” Elim sighed, half against Julian’s lips. He ran a hand down Julian’s hair to trace behind his ear.

Julian shivered. “And don’t you forget it.”

“I shouldn’t, I know.” A hum and another small kiss on the cheek. “I really shouldn’t. You know, I don’t think I fully appreciated the value of your ridiculous, romantic notions until tonight. Hard to argue with results.”

He could feel his wicked smile twist against Elim’s cheek. “You know, it’s funny you should say that. The castellan was telling me tonight that she always fancied _you_ a bit of a romantic.”

Elim pulled back, a look of shock that nothing else that evening had managed to produce.

Julian couldn’t help but laugh.

“I do hope she didn’t use _that_ word,” he huffed. “And that you corrected—”

But Julian never got to know precisely what correction Elim hoped for as the indignant huff was lost in the familiar sound of Issi’s high-pitched squeal.

“Da!”

She and Issen clamored into their space, Issi practically vibrating with excitement.

“Da, you’ll never believe what Ziam told me!” she said as she crumpled into a bouncing ball at his feet.

Beside him, he heard Elim give a small exhale of resignation at the interruption. Issen, watching Issi bounce happily, laid down on the soft, green grass. He rolled, slightly, towards Elim, who reached out to tuck a strand of black hair behind his ear.

“Da!” Issi pressed, poking his calves with a claw. “Da, did you hear me?”

Well, that moment was past, it seemed. “Yes…yes, I heard you, _lis’sea_, I heard you. Tell me. What did Ziam tell you?” He and Elim grinned privately at one another. This was a part of their walk, too. “I take it it’s good news?”

“She said the Castellan said that since she’s a Cardassian citizen, she could stay for a while if she wants. To, you know, look up any family or to just, you know, be here. And she said Auntie Kira could come with her since she’s her guardian, and they were saying that—”

Julian didn’t miss Elim’s chuckle. _Auntie Kira_. Oh, he was really dying to hear what Elim would make of that.

“—and show me how they braid hair on Bajor because she said it’s really different.” Big, blue eyes turned up in a way Julian just _knew_ she owed to Elim’s training. “Can she stay with us for a while? She can have my bed; I’ll sleep on the floor.”

It was Elim who answered: something about sleeping arrangements and protocols for when guests visited. Julian, however, couldn’t help but watch his husband’s gentle gray hand as it stroked Issen’s hair. Issen hummed the same few notes again and again, pressing at the tall _harat_ grass closest to his eyes.

Elim’s face scrunched. “What in Akleen’s name are you humming, _lis’sea_?”

Issen hummed it again, louder. Elim shook his head, but Julian recognized it.

He smiled and was certain he could feel another smile, somewhere far away. Somewhere beyond the White.

Was it his doing? Did it even work that way?

Julian didn’t know, but he chose to believe.

“It’s one of Vic’s songs,” he said finally, laughing, before he put vocals to Issen’s verse.

> Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum  
You came along and everything's startin' to hum  
Still, it's a real good bet, the best is yet to come  
  
Best is yet to come and babe, won't that be fine?  
You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine  
A-Wait till the warm-up's underway  
Wait till our lips have met  
And wait till you see that sunshine day  
You ain't seen nothin' yet

Issen squealed with glee and hummed even more loudly. Issi joined him now, swaying in a fairly serviceable impression of Vic.

When Julian had begun to sing, Elim had cringed, but he seemed to have warmed to the performance now. He offered their son and daughter polite _krek_ on the ground as they bowed.

To Julian, he merely pursed his lips and gave a nod. “’Yet to come,’ is it?…Hmm. Well, as I said. Perhaps, once in a while, you humans manage to get a few things right.”

When Julian looked back on his _seren’ora_ many years later, he would decide that, in fact, that admission was the best and most surprising gift anyone had given him all night.

Julian looked up at Talluvia and, gladly, truly, joined in the song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who kudosed and commented and stuck around for way too long for this conclusion. Hope you enjoyed! <3


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